Chinese schools committee a ‘little disappointed’
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Chinese Primary Schools Working Committee chairman Datuk William Chu hopes that Sabah will get a bigger chunk of the RM50 million allocation for Chinese vernacular schools for repair and maintenance under Budget 2018.
Chu said he had hoped the government would set aside a budget of RM100 million for this purpose and was a ‘little disappointed' over the amount allocated.
Nonetheless, he hoped that Sabah would get a bigger portion of the RM50 million allocation as there were many Chinese vernacular schools in rural areas that were in need of maintenance and repairs.
“There are 83 Chinese primary schools in Sabah and most of them are located in the rural areas.
“These rural schools have a much harder time soliciting donations so we hope there will be more allocation to assist the schools,” he said when asked to comment on the federal budget yesterday.
On another note, Chu also raised the issue of insufficient funds to hire substitutes to replace teachers who have gone on maternity leave.
He said schools were only allowed to hire substitute teachers when three teachers were on maternity leave.
However, Chu said the Board of Governors and Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) often had to bear the substitute teachers' wages as the Education Department did not have enough funds to do so.
“Each year, Chinese primary schools require between RM700,000 to RM800,000 to hire substitute teachers.
“In recent years, we have been told there was not enough money to pay for substitute teachers so we hope that this issue could be resolved as soon as possible.”