SARAWAK’s seven DAP assemblymen have been excluded from a lab the state education ministry is holding to decide how to shut down schools with low enrolment and how to improve English proficiency in schools.

The no-invitation came after state DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen two days ago dismissed outright the state government’s request for them to join other assemblymen, including from PKR, to help improve the level of proficiency in the English language in schools.

Chong brushed off the programme as “the most ridiculous of policies” he had ever seen.

Under the programme, each assemblyman is encouraged to adopt at least a school in his constituency, but Chong, who is Bandar Kuching MP and Kota Sentosa assemblyman, said the effort “would not work”.

He viewed the programme as an admission by the BN government  that its education policies had failed to improve English proficiency among students.

At the lab held at Imperial Hotel, State Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Michael Manyin said those who were unwilling to help or who were politicising the programme were better off not invited to the lab.

Manyin said he was taken aback by Chong’s scathing attack.

He said he had expected Chong to work with the state education ministry and come up with suggestions on how to improve the English of students in Sarawak schools.

“If he does not want to participate, I had expected him to just keep quiet.

Manyin said the assemblymen were invited to the lab because they and parents of affected students were the biggest stumbling blocks to the education ministry’s attempts to shut down schools with low enrolment.

He said their presence in the lab was the first step in efforts to make  them understand why the schools needed to be shut down.

Manyin said the state had 651 schools with a student population of under 150 and 1,004 schools with 151 to 300 students.

Manyin, a former school principal, said in Sarawak, the size of the school mattered when it came to funding.

He said resources allocated to schools were based on the student population and a small population meant a small allocation.

This, he said, had resulted in the schools not getting qualified teachers.

“It is uncommon in small rural schools to have teachers teach subjects they are not qualified to teach.

“Students therefore don’t get the best education because they are not taught the proper way.”

Manyin said whatever recommendations and decisions reached at the lab would also determine how the state tackled repairs to dilapidated schools.

He said the state definitely could not repair all the 1,020 schools that had been classified as dilapidated by the federal Education Ministry.

Of these, 415 were classified as “critically dilapidated”.

Sarawak has 1,454 schools, 190 of which are secondary schools.

In a new arrangement, the state pays first and then bills Putrajaya for repairs to dilapidated schools. – September 6, 2017.