PENAMPANG: The poverty in the district has a significant impact on education development, especially those from Bottom 40 household incomes.
Deputy District Education Officer Robert John said there were students who come to schools without pocket money.
"During rest time, these students cannot eat, but only look at others eating. But at SMK Bahang, there is a school initiative dubbed 'Magic Box', previously known as 'Magic Coin', where the school staff and students make donations for others to buy their food," he said during the Yayasan Bank Rakyat School Assistance Programme at SK St Paul here.
Apart from that, he said that the pupils in Penampang, especially from rural areas, also usually face issues when they further their studies to secondary schools which are far from their homes.
Robert added that the limited availability of hostels left parents with no choice but to pay costly transportation fees or to rent homes nearby.
This year, there are 25,212 students under the Penampang district office, he said.
However, he added that there are only a small number of students that are facing difficulties.
Present at the event were Penampang member of parliament Datuk Ewon Benedick, Kapayan assemblyman Jannie Lasimbang and Yayasan Bank Rakyat chairman Datuk Philip Benedict Lasimbang.
In response, Ewon said that he was informed of the situation last year and has included it in the Penampang Development Plan which includes having more new primary and secondary schools.
However, the entrepreneur and cooperatives development minister said that should those issues be detailed in an official letter, he could do more by forwarding it to the Education Ministry and ensuring that it would be considered for the next Malaysia Plan.
"With written recommendation, it will also be easier for me to discuss with the best cooperatives in the country to have them conduct corporate social responsibilities or for the government-linked companies to make more investments.
"For SMK Tambulion in Kadamaian, they also have transportation issues but they use their development allocation for cooperatives to provide a van to ferry students. This is one of the solutions."
Earlier, Ewon witnessed the handover of RM265,000 from Yayasan Bank Rakyat to schools under Penampang.