KUCHING: Nearly one-third of dilapidated schools in Sarawak are deemed unsafe by the Public Works Department (JKR) said Senior Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin.
According to national portal FMT, he said this involves 107 of the total 351 dilapidated schools that were identified in the state.
At the same time, the 244 other schools in the state were deemed dilapidated and involved unsafe buildings. He said this was confirmed by the district education offices.
Radzi was replying to Larry Sng (PBM-Julau) and Ma’mun Sulaiman (Warisan-Kalabakan) on the number of dilapidated schools in Sabah and Sarawak in a written parliamentary reply today.
At the same time, the federal minister said for Sabah, 282 upgrading projects for dilapidated schools had been approved from 2016 to 2022, involving RM1.9 billion in costs.
He said as of July 6, 186 of these projects had been completed while 32 were ongoing and 64 were at the pre-construction stage.
He also said the reconstruction of SMK Kalabakan in Sabah, which was categorised as dilapidated, was still at the negotiation stage because the land involved had yet to be placed under the federal land commissioner’s ownership.
In May, State Minister for Education, Innovation, and Talent Development, Datuk Roland Sagah Wee Inn said a total of 245 of the 1,020 schools in Sarawak identified as dilapidated since 2016 have been repaired, rebuilt or relocated so far.
He said the completed projects were among 455 that had been approved for repair works while another 565 dilapidated schools are still under consideration for future development.
In terms of funding for those projects, he said the federal government, through the education ministry, had allocated RM1.7 billion for 242 school development projects since 2016.
The Sarawak government injected RM1.3 billion for 213 school development projects.
This included RM1 billion in advance payment to the federal government, RM140 million for Projek Rakyat and RM160 million for the Regional Corridor Development Authority (RECODA) school upgrading projects.
