Kota Kinabalu: Sarawak says it is forced to take additional education measures because of concern that the current Malaysian system is “not very capable of producing the quality human resources that Sarawak needs for its development and progress”.
“If you look at the National Education Act, they declare that international schools are not part of the national school system. Sarawak is going to set up six.
“These schools will be open especially to the low-income groups who will receive free education, particularly the natives,” said former Sarawak Attorney-General and ex-president of Advocates Association of Sarawak, Dato’ Seri Fong Joo Chung.
Fong said this at the first “Malaysia at 60: The Borneo States” symposium at Yayasan Sabah on Saturday.
“We must be able to secure our future. We must have an educated and enlightened population,” he said.
Among steps to achieve this objective include:
- Emphasising on both English and Bahasa Malayasia;
- Providing free tertiary education;
- Setting up international schools for lower-income families, aside from private international schools for high-income bracket families.
Recently, it announced having its own assessment exams in lieu of the UPSR for 12-year-olds that was scrapped.
“We must look after ourselves in the context of what happened in the past, what we are experiencing now and how we can build that sustaining prosperous future, regardless of who is in power in Putrajaya.”
He said looking at the current education system, the Education Act and the core subjects taught, “we may have people that are very good in terms of having moral education but not able to accept or work in a challenging environment.”
Fong said that in Malaysia, international schools are not part of the national Ministry of Education syllabus that prioritises Malay as the medium of instruction on subjects, and therefore, the Sarawak Government can use English as the medium of instruction in educating its younger generations.
“Education is very important for Sarawak’s progress,” he said, adding that when Malaysia was formed in 1963, Sarawak’s rights to education were not taken away in toto.
“The Sarawak Education Ordinance, which was passed by the British, from 1963 to 1976 enabled education autonomy in Sarawak.
“The Sarawak State Government then set the syllabus and curriculum in schools in Sarawak. In 1976, the Federal government extended the federal Education Act to Sarawak and made the schools in Sarawak as part of the national education system.
“For many that was a regressive step, because up to 1976, Sarawak’s education system was almost second to none, and we produced many good people, well trained people, and people who are capable of taking up government positions, in politics and contributing to the manpower requirements of the state.”
He pointed out that Sarawak’s autonomy assertion can be seen when Yayasan Sarawak supported the establishment of the branch university of Australia’s Curtin University and Swinburne University in Miri and Kuching respectively, many years ago.
“If this was proposed in Malaya, the Malay language nationalists will be up in arms, it can never happen,” Fong said.
However, he cautioned against just merely demanding back control of education from the federal authorities without getting the constitutional stipulated funding guarantees.
According to him, when the federal authorities are financially distressed, they would be more than happy to discard the financial responsibility back to the Bornean states without bearing the burden of financing education from its tax revenue collection.
“Sarawak is prepared to spend RM100 million for its international schools from its own state revenue funds,” he said.
