Ranau school suffers cracks due to quake
Published on: Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Kota Kinabalu: A school building suffered minor cracks following the weak earthquake which occurred about 16km northeast of Ranau on Feb 1.State Education Director Datuk Jame Alip said Public Works Department (PWD) technical officers and District Education officers visited SMK Matupang Jaya and the surau on Monday morning to inspect the damage."The technical officers from the Public Works Department and District Education officers decided to visit the school this morning to inspect the safety of the building," he said, adding that the old cracks caused from last year's earthquake in Kudat had resurfaced.
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The latest earthquake measured 4.8 on the Richter scale while the previous one, 3.7. However, according to him, classes at the school went on as usual."So far, we have only received one report of damage due to the recent earthquake in Ranau from SMK Matupang Jaya and I advise all District Education officers to engage themselves with school principals, especially when such incidents occur, so that further actions may be taken," he said after delivering his annual address, here, Monday."If there is a need of allocation to repair the damage, then we would ask for allocation to repair those damages," he added.
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Earlier, Jame, in his speech, said the department is still focusing on public examination performances, especially UPSR as it is at a critical level."It is not impossible for us to improve our performance in the UPSR examination because both UPSR and PMR showed impressive results last year," he said, explaining the results proved that they could change their status through hard work, teamwork and staying focused on the implementation of effective strategies.
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He said the department had achieved 2.76 in the State Cumulative Grade overcoming 0.03 of the National Increase Cumulative."This is the best achievement gained throughout the past eight years and is the highest compared to the other states in Malaysia except Kedah in the year 2013," he said, adding that there is an increase as much as 1,197 of 5As and 7As pupils."As for the key performance index for the State Cumulative Grade, the department had placed 2.20 for UPSR, 2.68 for PMR, 4.58 for SPM and 2.05 for STPM. The high key performance index is a challenge to the department, district education offices and schools," he said.Therefore, he urged all teachers to double programmes that have a higher impact on the public exam performance."The best thing is there are also five schools which were awarded the Excellent School award. The schools are SK Batu 4, Jalan Apas Tawau, SK Batu 22 Balung Tawau, SK Pasir Putih, Tawau, SK Lok Yuk Telipok, Tuaran and Tuaran Special School," he said.According to Jame, in the recent PMR results, the performance of the department had also shown a total of 2.95 of the State Cumulative Grade, which is the best performance recorded in the State.He also said the department had reached zero band seven schools, which is considered to be poor standard.He later explained that the department had received a total of RM10 million in allocations for school maintenance."I hope the allocations will be given to schools which are in need of maintenance and I also hope through the given allocations, we can have all schools to have basic infrastructures by year 2015," he said.The Education Ministry, according to him, had also delegated powers to the State Education Department to be able to approve allocations from RM500,000 to RM5 million."Packages worth RM50,000 can be approved by the Director whereas packages under RM20,000 can be approved by District Education Offices," he added.Jame also said he hoped the delegation of power will increase the effectiveness of their delivery system. "I hope that the District Education Offices will be able to implement projects with the given list of schools to repair," he said.Earlier, he said the department is committed to ensure the 2013 to 2025 Malaysian Education Blueprint will be fully implemented and done through the State Education Strategic Planning and the department's annual target.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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