Parents not forced to transfer children after merger of schools

KUCHING: Parents will not be forced to transfer their children to new schools following the government's decision to merge under-enrolled schools in the state.

According to Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research and the State Education Department have held a laboratory to identify underenrolled schools in the state.

“The first step is to organise the lab. The second step, as informed by Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin earlier, is that they will be holding a roadshow to meet parent-teacher associations, non-governmental organisations and community leaders to obtain feedback.

“From the feedback, it will be decided whether the students remain at their old schools or that their schools will be merged. The parents must come to a consensus first,” he told a press conference after officiating at the closing ceremony of the 2nd International Conference on Special Education (ICSE 2017) at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here yesterday.

In a separate press conference earlier, Manyin said closing schools and merging them was not an easy feat because many parents would not agree to it.

“However, we hope that parents would understand our desire which is meant for the future of their children because underenrolled schools contribute not only to the physical aspect but competition between students will be lacking.”

He added that the ministry had identified those schools to be merged, and the next step was to conduct roadshows from now until September.

“We hope this issue can be settled by next year,” he added.