THE Sarawak government has submitted 15 points to the Federal government aimed at the devolution of power in education.
Deputy Minister of Education, Innovation and Talent Development Datuk Dr Annuar Rapaee said the points presented are part of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) within the framework of the ambit of Paragraph 17 of the Intergovernmental Committee Report (IGC) Report 1962.
He said his ministry and the Ministry of Education (MoE) are documenting what has been agreed upon and translate it into a circular so that its implementation will be smooth.
“Having said that, we are also studying in depth whether these points can be interpreted into a regulation or any form of amendments to the statute or any relevant statute so that there will be an adherence to what has been agreed upon, and also as a move to ensure continuity because as we all know, every time there is a new minister or every time there is a change in the government, there is also a change in the policy but with regard to MA63, we do not want that to happen anymore.
“Therefore, we are studying whether we can incorporate this as a form of regulation or as amendments,” he said.
Dr Annuar was responding to a question from Ding Kuong Hiing (GPS-Meradong) today.
However, he said there are some matters that are beyond the purview of the MoE.
“Therefore, we will escalate these matters to higher authorities for their consideration in the areas of concern as the most important issue previously that we faced in Sarawak is the shortage of teachers.
“Nevertheless, we have gained a lot of momentum with regard to the filling of teachers’ posts in Sarawak. For primary school we are able to fill 94.5 per cent of the posts and for secondary schools 98.9 per cent,” he said.
