Ministry should let Education Dept approve funding — PKR man

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Boniface Willy Tumek

KUCHING: The Ministry of Education (MOE) has been asked to empower the Education Department to enable the latter to approve funding for schools in need, especially in rural areas to enhance their facilities.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Mas Gading exco member Boniface Willy Tumek told a news conference yesterday that over 100 sub-urban and rural schools in the state had performed poorly due to neglect.

He claimed the schools would be able to improve academically if the MOE channelled sufficient grants to develop them.

At present, issues pertaining to education are entirely under the jurisdiction of the federal government including bids for schools requiring development funds.

“Based on the achievements of students in PMR (Penilaian Menengah Rendah) and SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) last year, only two SMK (national type secondary schools) in Sarawak are graded Band One, which is Excellent and 110 SMK are graded Band Five for Average and 12 of them Band Six – Below Average.

“This shows a whopping 66 per cent of SMK in Sarawak falling under the Average and Below Average categories of the grading system. And almost all of them are rural schools,” he said.

According to him, there are 184 national type secondary schools in the state, 119 of which are located in sub-urban and rural areas.

“One of the root causes that besets our education system in Sarawak is insufficient funding from the MOE. As a result,
repair and maintenance work could not be carried out for dilapidated schools, and ageing school buildings could not be upgraded,” he said.

Boniface said Sarawak is in dire need of more federal funds “in order to do justice to the aspirations of students and parents, and to serve the needs of society and the economy”.

He called on the government to channel at least one-third of the RM1.2 billion pledged in Budget 2014 to develop schools in Sarawak.