Press Statement by Michael Tiang, Political Secretary to CM

suppadmin | April 24, 2017

Michael Tiang, the political secretary to the Chief Minister of Sarawak welcomed Chief Minister Datuk Amor Abang Johari Tun Openg’s announcement to appoint a minister for education in the state cabinet. This announcement signifies that Sarawak Government continues taking steps to reclaim the state autonomy for education under the leadership of the Chief Minister. Tiang emphasised that education shall be one of the most essential items on the Sarawak Autonomy agenda for our state government to pursue.

Tiang said in his statement that in the past 3 months, he and his team had been visiting 30 rural national primary schools in Lanang and Sibu parliamentary constituencies. He discovered a general public misconception towards these national primary schools in that being a fully public funded schools, these schools should have no issues in education funding from the Federal Government. Tiang and his team found out that these rural national schools in fact had not been receiving any financial aids from the Federal Government to maintain and upgrade the schools’ buildings and hardwares. Many schools had in fact written several letters to the relevant department for financial helps, they received no response at all.

Tiang also shared his experience during his visits that one of the schools principal once knew that his team was coming to visit his school, he even prayed that there would be rain on the day, so that the principal could show the team all the leakages inside the classrooms.

Tiang stated that from the steep challenges faced by all these rural national schools, it is apparent that the Federal Government is unable to take care of these rural schools in Sarawak. Let alone expecting the officers in the Education ministry to understand the needs of these rural schools all the way from Putrajaya. Therefore, Tiang agreed with the Chief Minister’s decision to appoint an Education Minister in the state cabinet, as Tiang reckoned that it is time for the Federal to delegate the education administrative powers to the state authorities as well as the education budget for Sarawak to be given the state for better management of all the national schools in Sarawak.