KUCHING: The Ministry of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development will review the vocational skills courses offered to people with disabilities in the state.
Its minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said the Samarahan Rehabilitation Centre in Kota Samarahan which provided training to such people was being upgraded.
“Managed by the state Social Welfare Department, it will be transformed into Pusat Kecemerlangan OKU or Excellence Centre for People with Disabilities.
“The ministry and the Sarawak OKU (People with Disabilities) Skills Development Association (Sosda) are looking into developing the disabled by providing more organised and structured training.
“We will provide skills certificate programmes to produce people with disabilities who are skilful in various fields to improve their socio-economic status,” she told a press conference held at Baitulmakmur 2 building here on Monday (Feb 15).
Elaborating on approaches used to realise this initiative, Fatimah said the ministry and Sosda would work together with the existing skills training institutes such as Sarawak Skills Development Centre (SSDC), International College of Advanced Technology Sarawak (i-Cats), Centre of Technical Excellence Sarawak (Centexs) and SATT College.
“We will also look into establishing courses which are not available in these existing institutes to help the disabled meet the needs of the present times,” she added.
The courses provided, she said, would also depend very much on the respective abilities of the disabled.
She said the Ministry of Education (MOE) had revealed that Sarawak would have its own vocational school under the 12th Malaysia Plan.
