Cut salaries of S’wak assemblymen to buy gadgets for students – PSB
SIBU: Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) Presidential Council member Dato Sri Abang Aditajaya Abang Alwi has suggested that every state assemblyman and member of Parliament take a three months’ salary cut to be used to purchase gadgets for poor school children to follow home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) sessions.
According to him, the three months of salary of the 82 state assemblyman in the state amounted to RM3.9 million – RM48,000 an assemblyman with a salary of RM16,000 a month.
“With this amount they can help contribute Samsung tab to 6,560 students or handphones to 13,000 students,” he added.
He pointed out that the children’s learning will be affected if they do not have the necessary gadgets to undergo PdPR.
Thus, he called on the state government under Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) to be more sensitive to the plight of school children from poor families in the urban and rural areas of the state.
“We do not want these children to be left behind in their studies just because they cannot afford gadgets or devices. This will be detrimental to the children themselves and there will definitely be many more who will be left behind in terms of education at this time.
“Lessons are very important, we do not want them to be left out in lessons,” he said.
He also suggested that GPS look into providing computer gadgets to all students in Sarawak for free using state government allocations, and was sad that there was no allocation set aside for the acquisition of such gadgets for students in the state in the Bantuan Khas Sarawakku Sayang (BKSS) 5.0 package announced recently.
“This is for our future Sarawak children as well,” said Abang Aditajaya, who is also PSB Tanjong Manis chief in a statement yesterday.
He also informed that he had started giving gadgets for free to underprivileged students in Kuala Rajang and Semop state constituency under the Tanjung Manis parliamentary constituency since last week.
“Why can’t the GPS government?” he asked.