Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed today announced that the first phase of the school e-learning project 1Bestari Net was a failure but the government is proceeding with it.

 

The 1BestariNet project was outsourced to YTL Communications Sdn Bhd through open tender at a cost of RM4.077 billion. It has three phases to be completed in 15 years, starting from 2011.

 

“The first phase of the project was poor but we were told by the Education Ministry’s secretary general it will continue,” Nur Jazlan said at a press conference today at Parliament.

 

He added the cost for the first phase of the project was RM633 million and the government had already paid YTL.

The PAC is conducting a hearing on the project. Among the weaknesses it identified were that the connection of the internet to the user base was delayed, there was no committee set up at a ministerial level to monitor it, no research was done at the schools and no feedback was gathered on the effectiveness of the project.

 

However, Nur Jazlan added the PAC has not made a decision on the project yet as they are still calling in witnesses to be questioned on discrepancies.

 

He added former secretary general of the Education Ministry Rosli Mohamed was among those to be called up.

 

The committee would also be calling up the head of the project management office at the time to explain why the implementation of the project was so poorly done.

 

Nur Jazlan added PAC also found from initial probes in the project that involves around 10,000 schools, that many were not implementing the use of 1BestariNet despite receiving the equipment.

 

“The problem is that with the slow internet speed, schoolchildren and parents cannot access the system and therefore can’t use the learning modules provided by YTL,” Nur Jazlan added.