Education Ministry Agrees To Delegate Power To Sabah, Sarawak To Manage Projects

PENAMPANG, Oct 30 (Bernama) -- The Education Ministry has agreed to delegate power to each Education director of Sabah and Sarawak to manage the giving of education development project contracts in the two states.

In announcing this Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said it was reasonable to delegate such power, considering that Sabah and Sarawak were big states in terms of the number or size of their schools.

"Actually, it was like that previously for education projects in Sabah and Sarawak under our ministry, but since the last number of years, these projects have been managed by the ministry.

"I see the aptness in delegating this power back to Sabah and Sarawak. One way is to delegate that power to their Education director to see how certain projects that we implement at the state level can be jointly managed," he said after opening Parti Bersatu Sabah's (PBS) 26th Annual Convention at KDCA, here.

Muhyiddin who is also Education Minister, was earlier asked to comment on PBS president Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan's suggestion in his speech for the federal government to give Sabah contractors the opportunity to obtain contracts for projects funded by the federal government's allocations.

In regard to this, Muhyiddin asked the ministry's development division to study the two states' capacity to manage educational development project contracts.

"Although he have agreed on the matter in principle, we want to know whether they have the capacity or not to manage....we don't want any disruption after that due to lack of manpower to manage the projects.

"Perhaps, initially we should allow them to manage the small projects costing less than RM5 million. We should look at their capacity here first before handing them big projects to manage."

However, Muhyiddin said, several factors needed also to be taken into consideration, including the capability of the contractors offered the projects.

"There must also be a consultant for every project including on the contract's worth and areas that need to be scrutinised before the project is implemented."

On the call by the Parents Action Group for Education (Page), Sabah Chapter for the federal government to give national schools the option to teach Science and Mathematics in English, Muhyiddin said they had the right to forward their views on the matter.

"But we in the government and other concerned bodies have our own views on the matter too. If parents are asked, they will say 'yes', without knowing the background...whether the capacity is there and whether there are enough English language teachers.

"We have tested this since we introduced PPSMI (learning and teaching of Science and Maths in English). That's why we made the decision (to have the teaching of Science and Maths back in the Malay language).

"We have 5.3 million students, almost 10,000 schools and about 500,000 teachers. Hence, the information obtained was all-encompassing and we have considered all factors," he said.

Muhyiddin said the decision on the new policy was not made hastily but after indepth study made for the good of all.