Implementation of the National Education Blueprint (NEB) may fail if the government continues to neglect development expenditure for education, cautioned a DAP parliamentarian.

The allocation is at an eight-year low of RM2.1 billion in the 2013 budget.

NONE "The percentage of the overall education budget allocated for development expenditure has (also) dropped to an eight-year low of 5.4 percent,” Bukit Mertajam MP Chong Eng told a press conference at the Parliament lobby this morning.

"The irresponsible drop in development expenditure will decrease the long-term ability to provide the necessary infrastructure in terms of new schools and facilities.”

More serious is that the Education Ministry has been unable to consistently account for its development expenditure, she said.

"According to the Malaysia Education Statistics 2011 published by the Educational Planning and Research Division, the estimated development expenditure from 2006 to 2010 was initially projected to be RM17.9 billion.

“But the actual expenditure came up only to RM8.6 billion which is a difference of RM9.3 billion.”

Furthermore, a different figure - RM19.77 billion - was cited in the NEB for the same period of time.

"The Education Ministry must explain this discrepancy and the reason for it. Otherwise, the NEB is doomed to fail," she said.

'Overspending on operations'

PKR’s Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, meanwhile, said the government has constantly overspent on operational expenditure for education.

NONE Citing figures from the World Bank Expenditure Report 2011 prepared for the Education Ministry, she said the government had overspent by an average of 10 percent from 2006 to 2010.

The government has yet to release the full report.

"We call on the Education Minister (Muhyiddin Yassin) to explain these discrepancies in detail and to release the World Bank Public Expenditure Report 2011, along with the other three reports linked to the NEB..." she said.

The other three reports are the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Report 2011, Independent Malaysia Review Panel and Independent International Review Panel.