Govt-aided schools should consider changing status, says Maszlee

THE Education Ministry has suggested that government-aided schools facing problems coping with its operation and infrastructure development expenditures to change their status to national schools.

Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik said the move would allow all costs to be fully borne by the government.

He said this in his reply to Natrah Ismail (PH-Sekijang) during the Minister’s Question Time session.

Natrah had asked whether government-aided schools would receive the same amount of allocation as national schools for infrastructure development.

Dr Maszlee said in principle, the infrastructure aspect of government-aided schools was under the purview of the school’s board of governors.

“However, the ministry continues to provide special allocation and special incentive schemes via the government’s yearly Budget based on the need of each school and on the government’s current financial standing,” he said.

“The distribution of allocation will be based on the requests from schools to the state education department based on the current set guidelines and standard operating procedures,” he said.

Dr Maszlee said that government-aided schools would also be given a reminder to provide a quarterly report based on the given time frame.

He also said the ministry was looking to set up a new monitoring mechanism on the allocation provided to the schools nationwide.