BY ALEXANDRA LORNA & NATASHA JEE
KUCHING: More than 100 dilapidated school projects are being implemented throughout Sarawak to date, said Sarawak State Education Department (JPNS) director Datuk Dr Azhar Ahmad.
He said at the moment, Sarawak has 461 schools that are categorised with having dilapidated buildings.
“The education ministry has categorised schools with dilapidated buildings from the scale of 1 to 7. Those we consider as dilapidated, we prioritised them at a scale of 6 and 7.
“At this time, we have 461 dilapidated schools with poor infrastructure. Don’t misunderstand, 461 doesn’t mean, that the schools overall are dilapidated, but it only refers to those with poor buildings such as quarters, classrooms and others,” he said.
He said this during an exclusive interview with New Sarawak Tribune and its sister paper, Suara Sarawak at the JPNS Office here recently.
The department’s director further said that there are another more than 200 schools that are still yet to have projects but will be implemented gradually over time.
“We have various approaches for the schools’ development. The primary one is what we include in the five-year Malaysia Plan (RMK).
“Another approach is that we include the schools in the RM1 billion initial allocation provided by the state government, as per approval by the federal government. Apart from that, we also have projects with contributions from the state government.
“So far, we have seven schools that have been given grants by the state government. Several school projects have been completed, including at SK Meludam, where the entire school was renovated with a state government allocation of around RM30 million.
“Similarly, at SK Ulu Segan in Bintulu, over RM37 million was allocated. These are just examples. In truth, many parties are assisting in the effort to improve dilapidated schools throughout Sarawak,” he said.
Earlier, New Sarawak Tribune and its sister paper, Suara Sarawak paid a courtesy call on Dr Azhar.
The courtesy call was led by New Sarawak Tribune and Suara Sarawak chief executive officer (CEO), Datuk Dr Jeniri Amir.
Also present was Suara Sarawak executive editor Rohana Wahed.
