KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 — Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng today handed over an allocation of RM100 million to Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mujahid Yusof Rawa for the purpose of upgrading and maintenance of registered Islamic schools.
The allocation is divided into RM50 million for tahfiz schools, RM25 million for public and private Islamic schools and RM25 million for registered “sekolah pondok”.
“The allocation was an increase of RM50 million compared to previous government allocations in Budget 2018, which did not provide for public religious schools and ‘sekolah pondok’.
“The RM100 million allocation reflects the Federal Government’s ongoing commitment to ensure that students enjoy a safe learning and comfortable environment in tahfiz schools, public and private religious schools and pondok schools,” said Lim in a statement.
The handover of this provision is the result of the Budget 2020 announcement made on October 11 last year.
“This allocation is a one-off at the beginning of the year and not disbursed in stages, is in line with the government’s approach of speeding up implementation and improvement of the public service system for the year 2020,” Lim added.
The RM100 million allocation is part of the total RM735 million allocated for the Education Ministry to build new schools and upgrade schools to accommodate the rise in the nation’s population.
The government had in its Budget 2020 announcement increased allocations for the Education Ministry to RM64.1 billion, compared to RM60.2 billion in Budget 2019.
Apart from tahfiz schools, Lim reportedly said that the allocations would also benefit national schools such as Sekolah Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC), Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil (SJKT), boarding schools, MARA Junior Science College and private Chinese schools, among others.
