THE Education Ministry said there are no delays in the upgrading works of dilapidated schools as they are being done according to schedule as set by the government.
Speaking to reporters after attending the proclamation ceremony of SMK Arau as SMK Syed Hussein by the Regent of Perlis Tuanku Syed Faizuddin Putra Jamalullail, its minister Fadhlina Sidek reiterated the government’s commitment to providing the best education access for children as the upgrading works are being carried out continuously.
“All the projects are within the timeframe that has been set by the Works Department, thus there is no such issue as the projects are being monitored closely. We have a dashboard to monitor these dilapidated schools,” she was reported as saying.
“We will make sure they are completed according to the timeframe we have set.”
Fadhlina was responding to UMNO Supreme Council member Datuk Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi who had earlier called for the ministry to immediately resolve the issue of dilapidated schools by cutting all red tape.
Yesterday (May 22) Puad had questioned the Education Ministry’s silence over the existence of 19 dilapidated schools in Johor, as previously revealed by Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi.
Onn Hafiz, in his winding-up speech in the state assembly on May 19, had shared that out of the 19 schools in the “dilapidated” category, 14 had allocations approved for repairs since 2021 but not one school had been completely repaired in three years.
According to Fadhlina, until March this year, upgrading works for 694 dilapidated schools under the ministry have been completed while another 216 projects are in the pre-construction stage.
“More than 600 schools have been completed from a total of over 1,000 schools, which means we still have about 300 more schools yet to be completed,” she stated.
“We are consistently improving the process because after the unity government was formed, we have made resolving the issue of dilapidated schools a top priority.
“We are expediting the process with the cooperation of other agencies and God willing, we will complete the projects.” – May 23, 2024
Main pic credit: Utusan Malaysia
