KUCHING: An amount of RM10 million will be allocated for Chinese schools in Sarawak from the RM125.8 million recently announced for the whole state by Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi for school repair and upgrading.
In revealing this yesterday, Board of Management of Aided Chinese Primary Schools Kuching-Samarahan Division president Liu Thian Leong said from the amount, each eligible school would receive between RM20,000 and RM200,000, depending on their requests and needs.
“The RM10 million will be shared by about 140 Chinese schools in Sarawak and these schools do not include Chinese mission schools which are in another category.
“The allocation is meant for major repair. For example, a few schools in the rural areas have experienced serious termite problems which are very common among rural schools.
“And this is what the allocation is meant for, to repair such damage. It is also meant for the building of necessary amenities such as toilets and classrooms or purchase of furniture.
“It is definitely not meant for construction of new buildings such as school halls,” Liu explained.
There are about 140 aided Chinese schools in Sarawak, mostly located in the rural areas.
“For example in Kuching, there are 71 aided Chinese primary schools but more than two-third of them are situated in the rural area,” Liu told The Borneo Post.
He believed that the allocation was helpful and timely as regardless of the amount given, the Chinese schools were always in need of funds.
“We have submitted the list of schools and their accounts to the relevant authorities and we believe schools eligible for it will receive the allocation soon,” said Liu.
He was glad to note that in recent years, the government had been looking into the needs of the Chinese schools as well as Chinese mission schools, and provided financial allocation to them at different times through different packages or programmes.
“Some schools might not receive any allocation this time because they had already benefited from previous batches of allocation,” Liu added.
Liu was commenting on the announcement by Puad in Miri recently that Sarawak would be allocated RM125.8 million for upgrading and renovation of schools under the Special Stimulus Package.
Puad said the amount was part of the RM900 allocated under the package, where RM500 million would be for national schools, RM100 million for national type schools and RM100 million each for government aided religious schools and mission schools.