KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 — Schools affected by flooding in several states should open for the new academic year as scheduled, according to Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid.
He said the number of schools hit by floods was much smaller compared to 2014, and that preparations for the new school year was on track.
“The number of affected schools is not many, preparations can definitely be completed before school reopens,” he told reporters after handing out monetary allocations to government-aided schools here.
“This means that we can still make preparations. We have 10,000 schools in total in the country, and I think our preparation is still in a good stage.”
He noted that the only hiccup the ministry was facing in preparations at the moment was the misprinted Standard Six History textbook, and that he hoped it would be corrected and ready to be redistributed by next week.
On a separate matter, he said 1,848 school teachers were approved for transfers to work in the same state as their spouses.
He said they were selected out of 7,000 applicants, and that the selection prioritised those who had been separated from their spouses the longest.
He noted that this figure was exclusive of the standard transfer requests for other reasons, and said up to 5 per cent of the over 370,000 teachers in the country were working in different states from their spouses.
“We prioritised those who have been separated from their spouses for five or six years,” he said.
“We are making these decisions based on humanitarian grounds.”
