Sabah considers providing electronic devices to students – Hajiji

PENAMPANG: The Sabah government is considering providing electronic devices to underprivileged students in the state to facilitate their Homebased Teaching and Learning (PdPR) sessions.

Chief Minister Datuk Hajiji Noor said the state government understood the constraints and challenges faced by parents in providing the devices for their children’s learning process at home.

“We know that many underprivileged students in Sabah are facing this problem,” he told reporters after visiting the site of a landslide at Km44.7 Jalan Penampang-Tambunan here yesterday.

Hajiji said the Movement Control Order (MCO) may slow down implementation of the Jalinan Digital Negara (Jendela) initiative to provide wider broadband access in Sabah.

He said the delay was unavoidable as certain operations were not allowed under the MCO. However, he was confident that the implementation of Jendela would be expedited once the state transitions into the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO).

“We are well aware that certain projects and businesses cannot operate during the MCO, but I am sure once we transition to CMCO, there will be more flexibility to conduct activities in certain fields. As much as the government wants to ensure economic survival, this is also a matter of life and death,” he said.

Under Jendela, Sabah is the largest recipient of infrastructure development projects at RM2.45 billion. During the launch of Gerbang Sabah back in September 2020, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said 419 new towers would be built and 1,972 existing transmitters would be upgraded to 4G in the state.

Fibre optic fixed line coverage would also be expanded to encompass 251,166 premises throughout Sabah. It was expected that 96.9 per cent of populated areas would have 4G network coverage by 2022, before it was upgraded to 5G.

This would greatly help students in rural areas who had been undergoing open distance learning (ODL) which required a stable internet connection, said Hajiji.

On top of better internet connectivity, students from underprivileged backgrounds also required a laptop or smart phone to facilitate ODL.