(Berita Dari Sabah): Internet connectivity for schools, more hostels




KOTA KINABALU: The Education Ministry has introduced the ‘1BestariNet’ to address the information technology gap between children in the rural and urban schools.
The programme has already begun and they are now constructing terminals to allow connectivity to the Internet in town and rural areas within the country, Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi told reporters after a consolidation ceremony to transform vocational education yesterday.
In the case of Sabah, the State Education Department is still surveying sites suitable for the construction of such terminals and discussions with the service provider, Telekom Malaysia, is ongoing, he said.
Dr Mohd Puad also commented on the School Net, stressing that the programme has been unsuccessful due to the lack of connectivity.
On the new programme, he said that he was confident it will take off successfully.
“We’re hoping the new programme will encourage the use of ICT (information communication technology) at schools, particularly those in rural areas,” he said.
At the same time, he also commented on the need to have more rural hostels to house students who are living far from their school.
He said that with more rural hostels, the incidents of absentees among students at rural schools will be greatly reduced.
Additionally, the students will also be looked after in terms of their education and nutritional needs, he said.
“I have come across parents who have said that they preferred their children to be at hostels because they can only give them potatoes for food. They  like that their children have a more balanced diet while they are at their hostels,” he said.
By staying at hostels, the students will also forgo the long and arduous journey they often have to perform on a daily basis, he said.
He added that they have already completed the construction of the village hostel at Kinandu in Nabawan.
They are also in the process of constructing more village hostels in Sabah, he said.
“Our hope is for more rural schools to have a village hostel,” he said.
He said that there are 375 rural schools in Sabah.
During the interview, he also mentioned the Education Blueprint which he said will study the present policies by the ministry to see their effectiveness.
“We will be making a report on the achievement of those policies and then we will prepare a strategic planning or the blueprint,” he said.
The aim of the blueprint is to ensure the system has the capacity to create human capitals that are capable of thinking, are ICT literate and have the ability to converse / communicate.
Next month, the ministry will engage the public in a roundtable discussion to discuss the blueprint, and he expects that by September, this year, the blueprint would be ready and submitted to the minister for his perusal before it is presented before the cabinet.

15 comments:

  1. Kemudahan pendidikan di Sabah memang perlukan perhatian lebih. Murid2 ini berhak dapatkan pendidikan yang kondusif. Kuasa autonomi pendidikan wajar diberikan kepada Jabatan Pendidikan Sabah agar lebih banyak isu pendidikan yang dapat diuruskan dengan segera.

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  2. bagi keutamaan kepada pembinaan village hostels di seluruh Sabah, kerana bagi saya village hostels ini lebih penting berbanding dengan ICT di sekolah.. ramai pelajar2 di Sabah terutamanya di kawasan2 pedalaman tercicir kerana faktor jarak dan keselamatan..

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  3. I agree that more hostels are needed especially for those students who lived far from school which makes traveling daily a problem. The students will be able to stay in hostels if there are enough vacancy for them so building more is a good idea.

    Hope that the Education Ministry will do what is needed to rectify this issue.

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  4. Good that the Education Ministry is coming up with a new blueprint to improve the current education system in order to create better human capital. The students are our future and having an education system which can enable them to be competitive, capable of thinking and more are necessary for the state's future.

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  5. Kerajaan perlu membina lebih banyak asrama terutama untuk pelajar luar bandar. Jangan biarkan mereka tercicir dengan masalah jarak dan infrastruktur.

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  6. 'There are 375 rural schools in Sabah.'

    Begitu banyak sekolah luar bandar di Sabah. Memang wajar diberikan peruntukan yang lebih besar untuk pembangunan pendidikan.

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  7. kawasan luar bandar kena diberi perhatian, mereka jgua perlukan pembanguna infrastruktur terutama dalam pendidikan.

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  8. I agree. This is one of the good ideas to achieve par excellence among students.

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  9. I hope 1BestariNet will be a successfully one.

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  10. With the village hostel being build, the students will no longer have to worried about coming to school late or not even coming to school due to the distance or even complication in getting a transport to go to school.

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  11. This is one of the good moves to decrease the gap between rural and urban areas.

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  12. Ini terbukti bahawa kerajaan sememangnya prihatin dengan rakyat.

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  13. Indeed but make sure the connection is been done in a good way.

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  14. The government is there to help.

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  15. saya sokong hostel.. Kerana ini lebih penting bagi mereka untuk memudahkan dapat hadir kesekolah tanpa melalu perjalan yang jauh.

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