I find the revelation by the Deputy Education Minister, Datuk Khalid Yunus in Parliament during question time yesterday that there are over 2,000 schools in Malaysia without electricity supply most shocking, as this is more than the previous figures given by the Education Ministry with regard to schools without electricity supply.
In my supplementary question to Khalid Yunus in connection with the government’s programme to supply computers to schools, I had asked the Deputy Education Minister to give a progress report on providing power to the some 1,000 schools in the country without electricity.
Khalid corrected me, saying that he had previously given me figures about schools without electricity, which was more than 2,000, and not 1,000.
I have now checked the records. During the winding-up of the debate on the Royal Address in Parliament on 9th April 1996, I had raised the scandalous situation of schools given computers and fax machines but which have no electricity supply and I had asked the Deputy Education Minister, Khalid Yunus, who was replying on behalf of the Education Minister, how many schools in the country were without electricity supply.
Khalid was unable to supply me with the figures at the time but promised to send me those figures, and to his credit, Khalid did fulfil his undertaking, informing me by letter that there were a total of 1,320 schools, comprising 25 secondary schools and 1,295 primary schools, in Malaysia which did not have electricity supply.
During the debate in Parliament on the Seventh Malaysia Plan on 6th May, 1996, I expressed my “shock” at the high figure of 25 secondary schools and 1,295 primary schools without electricity, and called for an emergency government programme to ensure that all the 25 secondary schools without electricity supply should be provided with electricity supply by the end of this year, whether through Tenaga Nasional connection or generators, and that all primary schools in the country would be provided with power supply within two years.
I wish to commend Khalid Yunus for his sense of responsibility, for when I further asked for a full list of the secondary and primary schools without electricity supply, he took his Ministerial duties most seriously and sent me a list.
The list however only showed 930 schools in Malaysia without electricity supply and their state-by-state breakdown is as follows:
Perlis -
Penang -
Kedah 2
Perak 29
Selangor 22
Fed. Terrt -
N. Sembilan 3
Melaka 1
Johore 33
Pahang 27
Trengganu 9
Kelantan 50
Sabah 319
Sarawak 535
Total 930
I find it not only shocking but unbelievable that after the elapse of more than six months, far from reducing, the number of schools without electricity has increased to over 2,000 schools, as reported by Khalid Yunus in Parliament yesterday.
The Deputy Education Minister should give a full and satisfactory explanation for the latest shocking figures about more than 2,000 schools without electricity supply, which makes a complete mockery of the various government boasts about computer programmes in schools.
What is the use of the Education Ministry announcing that it will supply all schools with computers by the year 2000, when it could not give a clear-cut undertaking that all schools will be supplied with electricity by the year 2000?
With some 25 per cent of the schools in the country without electricity, how can Malaysia claim to be advancing towards an IT society?
In actual fact, the government computer plans for schools are already way behind those of other countries.
For instance, Khalid said in Parliament yesterday that the Education Ministry’s target for the year 2000 is to supply 40 computers to schools with more than 1,500 pupils. This works out to a ratio of 40:1 between students and computers.
In Denmark, the average number of pupils per up-to-date computer is 28, and its target by the year 2,000 is to reach a ratio of 5-10 pupils per up-to-date computer.
But all the Education Ministry’s modest computer plans when compared to those of other countries sound quite utopian and unrealistic when some 25 per cent of the schools in Malaysia do not even have electricity supply!
I call on the Education Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Najib to take a very serious view of the high percentage of schools without electricity supply which must be regarded as an affront to Malaysia’s credentials as a modern state and a mockery of Malaysia’s grandiose plans for a Multimedia Super Corridor.
Najib should ask the Cabinet next Wednesday for a policy decision to provide all schools in Malaysia with electricity supply by the end of 1998. During the Parliamentary debate on the Education Ministry on the committee stage of the 1997 Budget, I would highlight this issue and demand that a firm government commitment be given to Parliament that all schools would be supplied with electricity by the end of 1998.
(22/11/96)