PUTRAJAYA must explain why it is taking such a long time to distribute the 150,000 tablets and laptops to needy students to help them with online learning, said Muar lawmaker Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman.

He said the nation is currently facing an education crisis and many students have not been able to keep up with lessons as they do not have the electronic devices needed to do so.

“Schools have been closed the whole of last year and since March this year. Yet the tablets and laptops have not arrived?

“The ministers are taking this matter lightly, waiting till the end of the year to keep to their promises,” he said.

Syed Saddiq said the initiative to provide the devices was tabled at Budget 2020 in November last year, where it was announced that RM150 million was set aside for it.

“In January, the government said it would expedite this programme and students would get the laptops in February,” he said.

Earlier today, Education Minister Mohd Radzi Md Jidin announced that 12,887 laptops and tablets had been delivered to 95 schools. He said the government targets to complete the distribution of all the devices by the end of September.

“The finance and education ministers must be transparent and explain why it is taking so long. Is it because they do not have enough supply or has the allocation (in the budget) not been processed?

“I’m tired of waiting for the ministers to do their work,” he said.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Najib Razak questioned why the government was only providing 150,000 devices.

“My question to the Perikatan National government is ‘are there only 150,000 B40 and M40 families who can’t afford these electronic devices?’,” he asked in a Facebook post.

The Pekan lawmaker said the government has failed in handling the pandemic in the past nine months, leading to schools to close in the meantime, and yet it expects students to adapt to online learning without providing them with the necessary tablets or laptops. – June 6, 2021.