Datuk Richard Wee
KUCHING: The Ministry of Education (MoE) should not cut down on operating cost at the expense of the quality of education, said Sarawak United Association of Chinese School Boards of Management secretary-general Datuk Richard Wee.
He said Malaysians in general can understand the federal government’s need to reduce expenditure but the quality of education should not be compromised.
“When you combine classes in low-enrolment schools in the name of cutting down operating cost, you are not taking quality into account.
“MoE should heed the advice of various Chinese school boards rather than to implement its policy single-handedly,” he said in a statement here yesterday.
The ministry has announced plans to combine classes in under-enrolled schools with fewer than 30 pupils to address the shortage of teachers nationwide.
Wee, who is president of Federation of Kuching, Samarahan and Serian Divisions Chinese Associations, feared that the combined classes policy would eventually lead to the closure of low-enrolment schools, and might even affect the performance of pupils.
He said the MoE ought to come up with better measures than introducing and implementing the combined-classes policy.
“I do not think our children will be able to focus if Primary 2 is combined with Primary 3 and Primary 4 with Primary 5.
“Furthermore, such combined-classes policy is never heard of across the globe. I do not think this is a thought-out policy,” he added.
In Sarawak, Wee said many aided Chinese primary schools in urban areas are congested, resulting in the phenomenon of the lack of such schools.
He, therefore, suggested that the federal government look into how to relocate low-enrolment schools to the urban areas instead of implementing the combined-classes policy.