PUTRAJAYA, Feb 5 — Minister of Education Maszlee Malik has submitted an application for additional allocation to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng for the maintenance and repair of national schools and state religious schools.
In a statement today, the Ministry of Education said the matter, however, was still under consideration by the Ministry of Finance.
“The perception that the Minister and the Ministry of Education are not concerned about the wellbeing of students and schools in the country, especially national schools and state religious schools, is indeed baseless,” it said.
On the allocation to private secondary Chinese schools totalling RM12 million this year, the ministry explained that it was not an allocation from the Ministry of Education.
”Instead, it was a special fund channelled directly by the MoF to the schools,” it said.
Meanwhile, the statement said social media reports implying that the Ministry of Education was focusing more on the development of Chinese schools, simply based on several announcements made by Deputy Minister Teo Nie Ching, were not true.
“In the case questioned by certain quarters, the ministry would like to explain that the allocation for maintenance of national-type Chinese schools announced by the deputy minister of late, is an allocation approved for 2018, and not an allocation for 2019.
“Since the allocation was for 2018, the ministry has to channel it to the respective School Governing Boards before the closing of the 2018 account,” it said.
The ministry said the government, through the 2019 Budget, had also approved an allocation of RM652 million for maintenance and upgrading of schools.
Of the total, RM527 million were meant for national schools and national religious schools (RM250 million); national-type Chinese schools (RM50 million); national-type Tamil schools (RM50 million); full-boarding schools (RM50 million); government-aided religious schools (RM50 million); missionary schools (RM50 million); conforming schools (RM15 million) and private Chinese secondary schools (RM12 million).
“The remaining RM125 million were allocated to Mara Junior Science Colleges (RM50 million; tahfiz schools (RM50 million) and registered ‘pondok’ schools (RM25 million), the statement said. — Bernama
