SIBU, Sept 27 — The Ministry of Education, Innovation and Talent Development is spearheading the formulation of a blueprint to provide free tertiary education for Sarawakian students studying in the five state-owned institutions of higher learning.

Deputy Minister Datuk Dr Annuar Rapaee said the blueprint, once ready, will be presented to the state government for the final decision.

He said his ministry is currently rolling out the lab on the future direction of Sarawak’s tertiary education to gather data, suggestions and feedback, to be compiled to form this blueprint.

The five-stated owned higher institutions of learning are Curtin University, Swinburne University, University of Technology Sarawak (UTS), i-CATS University College, and Kolej Laila Taib (KLT).

"The lab started last month in Curtin University (in Miri) and today at UTS here, and we will have another one in Kuching in November.

"The lab explores several models in detail. After the lab in Kuching, we will compile the data to form the blueprint and direction on how we go about to provide free tertiary education for Sarawakian students studying in the five state-owned universities.

"We can always formulate our own policies for these five institutions of higher learning in Sarawak, as they are not public universities,” he told reporters after the second lab at UTS, here yesterday.

Dr Annuar, however, said whether the blueprint will be adopted or not, as well as when it will be adopted, will be up to the state government to decide.

On the lab, he said it also looked into whether the five universities have the capacity to cope with the expected rise in student enrolment, in terms of facilities and availability of human resource especially lecturers.

"Because we can be sure that a lot of Sarawakian students will opt to study locally than going to the peninsula because it is free and reduces the hassle of them flying back to the state especially during festivities,” he said.

He added that his ministry, for a start, is projecting an annual student enrolment of 5,000 for each of the five varsities once the policy is implemented.

To a question, Dr Annuar said the idea of setting up the state’s own Unit Pusat Universiti (UPU) has also been discussed in a bid to find a better way to enrol Sarawakian students. — Borneo Post Online