THE details of funding and mode of implementation for dilapidated schools in the State are still under negotiation and will be finalised soon. According to Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin Jawong, upon request by the state government, the federal government had agreed to allocate RM1 billion in 2018 National Budget to address the issue of dilapidated schools in Sarawak.
“The 1 billion is to be used for two years, that is 2018 and 2019 and the time frame actually depends on the amount of fund,” he said in response to questions by Batu Lintang Assemblyman See Chee How during the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) sitting, yesterday.
“But because there are too many dilapidated schools in Sarawak, namely we have 1554 schools, whereby 190 are secondary and 1264 are primary schools, out of which 1020 are considered by the department as dilapidated schools. “And 415 are considered critically dilapidated, meaning that these cannot be repaired but only can be rebuilt or placed at new sites.
“So the department has actually identified 205 schools to be included in the 11th Malaysia Plan; that means using the normal allocation,” he pointed out. He said that the remaining 110 schools will be implemented through the special funding as announced by Prime Minister in the National Budget 2018 “We are in the process trying to identify the schools and one of the things we think of is to centralise the schools because we have too many small schools with less than 150 students.
Some of them have only 10 students or 20 students “So due to all these we are thinking of centralising them and that is not an easy task. We have let the assemblypersons know, the response is positive but yet to get the approval by parents.
“What we are going to do is that we will give every rural constituency one centralised school; this also depends on the response of the parents,” he stressed.
He said if the parents do agree, then the government will start building the centralised school as early as next year and that will be the model. “Those who don’t agree, we will wait and let them see the model. “In order for us to have the centralised school in your area, please help us to convince the parents because we believe the small schools can never perform well in any developed country,” he said.
