SHAMSUL MUNIR SAFINI and NUR IZZATI MOHAMAD
BUKIT MERTAJAM: Education Ministry will be taking necessary steps to ensure all 14 Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC) will have headmasters by the end of this month.
Its deputy minister Teo Nie Ching said the ministry would do its best to fill the vacancies as soon as possible because otherwise the schools would be unable to carry out their administrative duties
The appointment of the new headmasters would also facilitate the admission of new students in the next school session.
“Out of the 14, there are schools which have not had a headmaster for the past 10 months which caused the schools to face difficulties in carrying out administrative affairs.
“Hence we are looking into this and will fill up the vacancies latest by the end of this month,” she said at a press conference after her visit to SJKC Permatang Tinggi here today.
The deputy minister also visited a few other SJKC schools to get updates and help with the upgrade works for the school buildings which were in a dilapidated condition.
Teo said the Finance Ministry has already approved projects to construct new classrooms and buildings on Aug 27 this year.
“At my first visit to SJKC Kay Sin, the school management requested for 18 classrooms to be built costing a maximum of RM13 million while the SJKC Permatang Tinggi asked for 12 classrooms involving RM10 million.
“Both the projects have been approved and are in the process of getting tenders before being implemented next year,” she said.
Later at Batu Kawan, Teo said that a SJKC would be built there and it would be completed in 2021 costing between RM8 million to RM10 million.
The school will be built on a 2.43 hectare land consisting of 24 classrooms. There will be 35 students in each class..
She said that the population of the area could increase to 250,000 and it was timely for a new school to be constructed there.
“The Batu Kawan folks want a new school at the area, hence we will expedite the construction.
“This area needs another school, co-existing with Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK), Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) and Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil (SJKT) which are already here,” said Teo.
Meanwhile, she also said that the ministry would expedite the process of admitting stateless children to government schools so that they will not be left behind in education.
“We will issue a broadcast letter on this after we issue a written notice to all education departments before end of this month,” she added.