Sarawak gets largest slice of Education Ministry funding, says Director-General
KUCHING: The allocation for Sarawak this year by the Ministry of Education is the biggest among all the states in Malaysia.
Sarawak receives RM442 million out of the RM3 billion allocated by the ministry under ‘Schooling Assistance’ this year.
According to the ministry’s director-general Tan Sri Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof, this schooling assistance for Sarawak is divided into three categories – general assistance worth RM89 million, special assistance (RM319 million) and one-off assistance (RM34 million).
“All these three categories of assistance are meant for children who are attending lessons at 1,436 schools in the whole of Sarawak,” he said in launching the ministry’s ‘Explore Education’ programme at Plaza Merdeka here yesterday.
Khair pointed out that the assistance is aimed at ensuring that children in the state would have access to quality education like their counterparts in developed countries.
On teachers, he said the ministry is targeting to have 90 per cent of those teaching in Sarawak and Sabah to consist of locals.
According to him, the process of transferring teachers began last June and the target should be achieved by this January.
For Sarawak, he said 90 per cent of the 43,000 teachers would be Sarawakians by early next year.
On the two-day programme, Khair called upon the community particularly the parents to visit the exhibition on the atrium of Plaza Merdeka to obtain the latest information about the nation’s education policy.
He said the ‘Sarawak Edition’ marked the ninth leg of the nationwide ‘Explore Education’ programme.
“I hope this programme would receive good response from Sarawakians who should take the opportunity to get information from the right source, instead of false information circulated on social media.”