Rural Devt Ministry to empower edu-tourism

KOTA KINABALU: The Rural Development Ministry will continue to support and empower the education-based tourism programme or edu-tourism in Kadamaian.

Its minister, Ewon Benedick, said the programme would not only generate additional income for the school fund via visitor entrance fees, but also enhance the knowledge of students in the tourism industry.

In this regard, he expressed his commitment to develop the rural tourism sector starting with the Kadamaian state constituency, including providing continuous support to the programme which has already been implemented at Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Sayap in Kota Belud.

“I am committed to further empowering such programmes through the contribution and role of the ministry including introducing a new rural tourism programme based on the Mini Estet Sejahtera (Mesej),” he said after receiving a courtesy call from the SK Sayap Edu-Tourism main committee at his ministry here yesterday.

Ewon, who is also Kadamaian assemblyman, said he would visit Kampung Sayap on June 23 to get more input from the community on common aspirations to develop the rural tourism sector.

Meanwhile, SK Sayap’s EduTourism coordinator Boniface Jiran said the positive impact of the programme included improvement in the pupils’ motivation, academic achievement and confidence in communicating in English with visitors from Japan and England.