GEORGE TOWN, March 31 — Putrajaya should heed World Bank economist Dr Frederico Gil Sander’s suggestion to give schools more autonomy as a way to improve the country’s education, the DAP said today.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng agreed with Sander’s proposal that schools be given more power to make their own decisions based on their local circumstances.

“Schools can be more efficient by grading them on performance and merit which will compel them to seek better trained teachers as ultimately, the teachers are the ones to make the difference and inspire students toward excellence,” the Penang lawmaker said in his speech during the Supplementary Budget 2014 in Parliament today.

Sander had noted that Malaysians should be more alarmed by their children falling behind counterparts in poorer Vietnam and Thailand than the country’s rising household debt.

In the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) 2012, Malaysian students ranked 52 out of 65 compared to Vietnamese students who ranked 17 out of 65.

The Penang chief minister, on the other hand, disagreed with Sander that the nation’s rising household debt is not as worrying as the poor quality of education, despite the possible effects on the nation’s pool of skilled talent.

He contended that both the poor quality of education and rising levels of private household debt are economic threats that could derail the country’s dream of achieving Vision 2020 as a developed country.

He explained that high household debt reduces the quality of life and social records have shown that this leads to children’s education suffering due to the economic distress.

Malaysia records the second highest household debt in Asia, which increased from 81.1 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2012 to 86.8 per cent of GDP in 2013.

The Bagan MP said Malaysians’ income levels were not growing quickly enough to provide a discernible improvement in the quality of life, repeating DAP’s previous proposal for a RM1,100 conditional minimum wage.

He added that at the current wage levels, Malaysians could not keep up with inflation, especially with Putrajaya’s price hikes in sugar, petrol, power tariffs and motor insurance premiums.

Lim also criticised Bank Negara Malaysia as being short sighted in terms of the nation’s rising household debt problem when the central bank dismissed it as not posing any risk to the country’s financial stability.

“Bank Negara should realise our income levels are stuck in a ‘glacial trap’ with inflation outpacing wage rises that has forced many households to rely on credit loans to make ends meet and to resort to loan sharks when they are unable to get loans from financial institutions,” Lim said.

He pointed out that the total household borrowings are at RM854.3 billion in 2013 and out of this, 27 per cent with total borrowings of RM230.67 billion are households with monthly earnings of below RM3,000.

According to Bank Negara, the lower income groups earning less than RM3,000 have an average outstanding borrowing that is seven times their annual incomes.

Bank Negara said on March 19 that the household borrowing spiralled to 86.6 per cent of the total value of the entire economy in 2013, up from just over 81 per cent in 2012.