Shafie and Yayasan Sabah officials with the scholarship recipients and students attending the scholarship award presentation.
KOTA KINABALU: Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal not only allocated a Yayasan Sabah one-off RM10 million assistance for 5,000 students in higher learning institutions this year, but also vowed to increase it should the finances allow it next year.
Shafie stressed that education, knowledge and human resource are the important priorities of the new government.
“I will reform Yayasan Sabah to make sure it will go to its original intentions of helping the Sabah children.
“Establishment of the Yayasan Sabah intended for the human resource development, not tauke-tauke (business owners), not to export timber to overseas to profit the Japanese, to profit the Hong Kong people. But I want to make sure that the young Sabahans would benefit from resources that are available from Yayasan Sabah,” said Shafie.
“I have informed the (Yayasan Sabah) deputy director, this year alone we will prepare RM10 million as a one-off for children throughout Sabah. So, I start with RM10 million. Impossible that Yayasan Sabah does not have RM10 million. If there’s money, this year RM10 million, next year I will increase more,” he assured when officiating at the 29th Anugerah Biasiswa Cemerlang Negeri Sabah (ABCNS) Presentation ceremony at Tun Ahmad Raffae Auditorium, Menara Tun Mustapha here yesterday.
In addition, Shafie said the state government would provide a budget to send outstanding students to renowned universities like Oxford and Cambridge, and Ivy League universities like Harvard next year.
“This year, we couldn’t make it in time. God willing, next year I was discussing at the Finance Ministry level, I wanted the government to sponsor children to Oxford University, Cambridge. Who say we cannot do it, we can do it,” said the Chief Minister.
“Not too many people, we start with a few numbers as we know it is limited. But that’s to make sure we want to invest in the development of the available human resources.
“I want to invest for the future of the children, not for my future. To prepare them so that Sabah can develop,” he added.