SARAWAK politicians today accused Education Minister Maszlee Malik of being “naive” for trying blame the state for its dilapidated schools.

Youth leaders of Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) said if Sarawak was responsible for the current condition of its schools, then Putrajaya should return 100% of the oil and gas royalty to the state and give it full autonomy on education.

“We will then deal with it (condition of  schools) our way. We hope that Maszlee will fully support any motion tabled in Parliament on these issues,” GPS Youth leaders said in a statement.

The youth leaders were peeved with Maszlee’s statement which he had made after visiting two run-down schools in Bintulu on Saturday, where he attended the launch of his party Bersatu’s membership drive in Sarawak.

Maszlee had allegedly said that: “It did not make sense for a rich state like Sarawak to have such dilapidated schools”.

The GPS Youth leaders – Gerald Rentap Jabu of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), Snowdan Lawan (Parti Rakyat Sarawa), Michael Tiang (Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Robert Ayu (Progressive Democratic Party) – in the joint statement, said Maszlee seemed to be ignorant of the fact that education is under the jurisdiction of the federal government and not the state.

They also said that in the 55 years of Malaysia, the three most senior leaders of Pakatan Harapan, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, PKR president Anwar Ibrahim and Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin, had served as education minister at one time or another and therefore should be held responsible for the condition of the schools.

Dr Mahathir was education minister between 1974-1978, Anwar (1986-1991) and Muhyiddin (2009-2015).

“His statement that rich Sarawak has many dilapidated school is therefore absurd.”

GPS Youth said while they welcomed Maszlee’s willingness to work with Sarawak to resolve the issue, they slammed him for allegedly telling Sarawak not to politicise the issue.

They said it was strange he had made the request when all the statements he had made during his weekend visit to Bintulu clearly had political overtones.

State Education Minister Michael Manyin had reported to the state legislative assembly in its November Budget sitting that out of 1,454 schools in the state, 1,020 are classified as dilapidated with 415 deemed to be in critical condition.

Sarawak estimates that RM5 billion is needed to fix the schools. – December 4, 2018.