The Sarawak government has to reclaim control of education, which is listed as Point 15 of the 18-Point Agreement the state signed when becoming part of Malaysia, if it wants to progress and prosper, Sarawak PKR says.

“Education is too important and too crucial for our advancement. Sarawakians cannot progress and prosper if we cannot provide proper and superior educational facilities and teachers for our younger generation,” Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian said in a statement today.

“We must be responsible for all aspects of education, because those civil servants in West Malaysia do not care about us. The education minister may say there is no bias and promise us the moon, but he is not the one carrying out the work, at the end of the day,” Baru said.

The Ba’Kelalan assemblyperson said this when commenting on the statements made by Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Second Education Minister Idris Jusoh on the lack of qualified Sarawakians to be trained as teachers.

Muhyiddin had said in Kuching yesterday that the Ministry of Education planned to increase the number of trainees from Sarawak in teacher training institutes, who would serve in the state after graduation.

In the proposed new guidelines, Muhyiddin said, special attention would be given to applicants who meet the minimum entry requirements.

Last week Second Education Minister Idris Jusoh said that since there were not many Sarawakians qualified as trained teachers, the ministry had to post West Malaysian teachers to fill the vacant posts in Sarawak.

'52 years of BN rule enough'

Responding to the statements, Baru said the posting of teachers from West Malaysia was not the answer to Sarawak’s problems.  

“We must take charge of our own destiny. We need to reclaim control of education. But, most importantly, we need to change the government,” he said, adding that 52 years of the BN government rule was enough for Sarawakians.

Baru said the standard of Sarawak’s education system started to decline the moment the responsibility for education in the state was handed over to the federal government by the then chief minister Abdul Rahman Yakub.

“The federal government has made such a mess of it that we should take this right back and try to restore education in the state to its former glory,” he added.

On what he described as the “magnanimous offer” by Idris ( left ) to lower the entry requirements so that more Sarawakians could be trained as teachers, Baru said that was a reflection of the patronising attitude of West Malaysian politicians towards Sarawakians.

“The education minister himself admitted in Kuching yesterday that the RM1 billion that was promised in February last year to repair and rebuild dilapidated schools appeared to have been just been empty talk.

“The Education Blueprint states that by December 2013, all 1,608 schools in the country requiring critical repairs would be fixed and that these repairs would start in Sabah and Sarawak.

“That too, has been just empty talk. Almost all the schools in my area are still in need of critical repairs,” Baru added.