Manyin hopes Budget 2019 provides for repair of 500 schools in S’wak
KUCHING: The Sarawak state government is hoping there will be allocations for repairs of some 500 schools, or half of the total dilapidated schools in Sarawak, in next year’s national budget.
While the Sarawak government appreciates the target set by Ministry of Education (MoE) in Putrajaya to complete the repair of 116 dilapidated schools in Sarawak this year, Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin Jawong said the other dilapidated schools must also be given attention.
He explained that the dilapidated schools not only need repairs, but the buildings also need to be rebuilt, particularly at 415 schools classified as critically dilapidated.
He also reminded MoE that altogether 1,020 schools were found to be dilapidated in Sarawak; apart from the 415 which are critically dilapidated, 210 schools are considered 50 per cent dilapidated and 395 are 25 per cent dilapidated.
Based on estimates by the state government, he said Sarawak needs about RM5 billion to repair and rebuild these schools. Thus, repairing and rebuilding 50 percent or some 500 schools would cost in the region of RM2.5 billion.
“We really hope, as announced by Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik, that they (federal government) aim to achieve 50 per cent completion of repairs of dilapidated schools nationwide next year, that these will include 50 per cent of dilapidated schools in Sarawak,” he said in an interview.
Maszlee had been quoted recently as saying that next year’s budget allocation will focus on fixing the infrastructure and repairing of schools apart from empowering technical and vocational education and training (TVET).
Maszlee had also said that 394 schools had been repaired nationwide this year, which exceeded the target of 10 per cent of schools, and the Pakatan Harapan federal government hoped to achieve 50 per cent of the target next year.
According to Manyin, the previous Barisan Nasional government agreed to give Sarawak a sum of RM1 billion for two years to repair the dilapidated schools.
He also pointed out that MoE under the previous administration had as of February this year issued contracts to repair 116 schools, worth RM419 million.
According to the schedule of work, 50 of those contracts are handled by Public Works Department (JKR) Sarawak and 66 are under MoE. The latest date for completion was July this year.
“The 50 schools done by JKR Sarawak all have been completed. But the ones under MoE, not all have been completed,” said Manyin.
On another matter, Manyin expressed his hope for all schools in Sarawak to have single sessions from morning to afternoon. At present, 31 primary schools conduct double sessions and 52 secondary schools have double sessions.
By having single sessions, he believed schools can conduct extra classes in order to improve performance, especially in public examinations.
“This is also what we want to address, to have all schools having single session. That means we have to build few more schools which then again needs huge sum of money,” he said.