Students in Pitas wearing life jackets provided by the Ministry of Education.
KOTA KINABALU (Jan 15): The Ministry of Education has provided life jackets to students in Pitas after reports and pictures of them risking their life commuting to school without them in small boats went viral.
According to a post in Suara Sabah News Facebook page, the ministry, with the assistance of the Kudat Marine Department acted on the issue.
Photos that were shared by thousand of Facebook users showed Primary One students on their way to their school, SK Mangkapon, Pitas, in boats without using life jackets.
A Facebook user ‘A Korn Korn’, has shared the plight of these students on the social media due to inaction by the authorities for over a year.
“To the authority concerned, we have no choice but to viral this case because it has been more than a year of inaction … please, where is the government and the NGO (non-government organisation) to give us a bigger boat and safety jackets. Don’t wait until it is too late,” wrote the user.
Netizens praised the prompt action and hoped more issues in Sabah, especially in the interior will be taken seriously although it is not highlighted in the social media.
Bengkoka assemblyman Harun Durabi Harun, who is also the Deputy Rural Minister for Sabah, told The Borneo Post on Friday that he is working towards securing funds to get bigger boats to serve his community as well as life jackets for the school children who have to use the boats to go to school.
“I will have to get the exact number of school children for the safety jackets. I will visit them soon,” he said when asked to comment on the plight of the school children.
He pointed out that the river plays an integral role in connecting the rural communities of Pitas to the outside world.
Harun said that his constituents have used the river to communicate with the outside world since time immemorial.
“That is how it has been all these while,” he said.
He explained that many of the villages in his constituency are unreachable by road, and so many communities reside by the riverbank.