Look after your own portfolio, Manyin tells Guan Eng

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Manyin (fourth left) joins (from right) Serian Resident Tuah Suni, Bukit Semuja assemblyman John Ilus, Kedup assemblyman Martin Ben and others in performing the launch gimmick for the campaign.

SERIAN: Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin says it is ‘very unfortunate’ for Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, whose portfolio has nothing to do with education, to disagree with the centralisation of schools in Sarawak.

Regarding Lim’s statement as ‘shocking’, Manyin pointed out that never, in the history of Malaysia, had seen a Finance Minister ‘trying to be better than an Education Minister’.

Adding on, Manyin said the centralised school concept for Sarawak had actually been encouraged by the two former education ministers – Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid and Dr Maszlee Malik.

“I attended a few meetings during the previous administration with the excos (executive committee members) from other states, Sabah and Sarawak.

“We’re told that there were too many schools in Sarawak with very low (student) enrolment, so because of that, the cost of running these schools were very high,” he told reporters after launching the ‘Serian Mega Gotong Royong Campaign’ here yesterday.

According to Manyin, it is found that when the schools are too small, results become very difficult to improve because the facilities are not there and the teachers are not available.

In Western or developed countries, however, small schools are doing well because of good and ample facilities, availability of teachers, and the children having highly-educated parents.

“The previous Education Minister (from Pakatan Harapan – PH) had encouraged us to do centralisation on some of the small schools (in Sarawak) in order to reduce cost and improve results.

“Now the Minister of Finance is against it, even when two former education ministers had encouraged us.

“To me, let him (Lim) tackle the economy; to get investors to come rather than trying to be involved in education,” stressed Manyin, who totally disagreed with Lim, who said there would be more dropouts among the students due to the distance factor and high transportation costs incurred in getting the children to the new centralised schools.

According to Manyin, there are eight schools in Sarawak that have less than 10 school-children, 43 schools having between 10 and 20 children, 54 schools having between 21 and 30 children, 196 schools having between 31 and 50 children, 296 schools having between 50 and 100 children, and 54 schools having between 110 and 150 children.

He said the total number of schools having students less than 50, was 651.

“These are the schools that the Ministry of Education wants us to merge with boarding facilities,” he added.

In a statement made on Thursday, Lim admitted the delays in implementing repairs of dilapidated schools in Sarawak was because the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Works did not agree on the proposal by Sarawak government to build centralised schools.