The construction for low enrolment school (sekolah kurang murid-SKM) in the State will begin in February next year.
“We will start with the areas that have no problems where the parents and the YBs have already agreed. We want to have at least one school for every rural constituency to start with,” Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research, YB Datuk Sri Michael Manyin Jawong.
“We have asked JKR, architects and the quantity surveyors for the designs and costing after we come up with the scope,” he said.
According to YB Datuk Sri Michael Manyin, his ministry together with the education department will be in charged project development and is intended to be fully committed in utilising the RM1 billion allocations.
He added that in Sarawak, there are about 651 schools considered as SKM with less than 150 students.
“Small schools cannot perform well because we do not have the resources. Some may not have electricity and water supplies. Besides that, our allocation is based on population. So the smaller the population, the smaller the allocation it gets,” he said adding that as of now Sarawak schools rank a 13 in overall academic level in the nation.
Speaking during the closing ceremony of Sarawak English Language Education Symposium (SELES) 2017 on October 25th, YB Datuk Sri Michael Manyin said that for those who do not agree on centralised schools, he hopes that they would agree to it later after looking at the performance of the schools.
Held from October 23rd to 25th, YB Datuk Sri Michael Manyin said SELES will be held again next year probably in Miri.
“The purpose of this to make sure Sarawakians aware that the chief minister’s office is very serious about our proficiency in English so that Sarawakians will be able to compete in the digital and globalised world,” said YB Datuk Sri Michael Manyin after the closing ceremony of SELES 2017.
“Bahasa Malaysia is not a problem as they have achieved their objective to unite various ethnic groups and provide us with identity. We are using English as a second language, so we would like to encourage people to try and speak English,” he said.
