State Education Department denies plan to merge classes

SIBU: The state Education Department has refuted a claim of a plan to introduce a combined class system next year, with its director Rakayah Madon saying there was no such plan at all.

“Actually, there is no such thing. So, we deny it; there is no planning in such a way. I don’t know where they got this information,” she told The Borneo Post yesterday.

Rakayah was responding to The Borneo Post’s article under the heading ‘Chinese schools body against plan to combine classes’ published on June 19.

The United Association of Aided Chinese Primary School Boards of Management, Sibu and Kapit Division said it opposed a plan by the Education Department to introduce the system next year.

Association chairman Datuk Tie Chie Ping reportedly said the Education Department had planned to introduce the combined class system for both Sekolah Kebangsaan ( SK) and Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (SJK) schools with enrolment of fewer than 30 pupils.

Tie was also quoted as saying that should the ‘Kelas Bercantum’ system be implemented, then Primary Two would be combined with Primary Three, and Primary Four with Primary Five, while Primary One and Six classes would not be affected.

On this, Rakayah reiterated: “Sarawak Education Department denies this.

“We did not discuss anything about that (merging of classes). Our planning (for) classes still remains the same, that is as long as there is a pupil, there is a class.

“In fact, for many years, even if we have one or two pupils, for example, in Primary One or Primary Two, we did not merge the classes. We still continue with one or two pupils in one level so far.”

She said she assumed someone might have wrongly interpreted or misunderstood the plan mentioned by Minister for Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin Jawong recently about merging small schools in the state.

“This is just a plan by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research which is in the process of collecting data such as where these schools are located, among others. We have to consider all factors, including consulting the assemblymen of the areas. This is not an immediate move.

“The association mentioned about merging of classes — we don’t know where they got the information from. Maybe, to me, they wrongly understood about merging of small schools. I think this could be a misunderstanding or somebody read wrongly ( equating) merging of small schools with merging of classes; I don’t know – it could have been misinterpreted but that is my assumption,” she added.

Rakayah emphasised that merging classes and merging of small schools are two different things altogether.