Ranau in Sabah has the most dilapidated schools in the state, says Education Minister

Fadhlina (middle, blue dress) and Armizan (third right, dark blue shirt) during the inspection at Sekolah Kebangsaan Kinarut on Sunday (Feb 26).

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is among the states with the highest number of dilapidated schools, says Fadhlina Sidek.

The Education Minister said Ranau, for instance, was the district in the state with the most dilapidated schools at 44.

She said most structures or buildings in dilapidated schools ranged between the scale of six and seven, meaning they were unsafe for use.

“Our immediate action is to transfer students to another building in cases where there are unsafe structures,” she said after visiting the flood-prone SK Kinarut, which also has unsafe buildings, in the southwest Papar district on Sunday (Feb 26).

She said that structures under the scales of six and seven must be replaced.

Towards this end, Fadhlina said some RM900mil was allocated to her ministry to resolve the issue of dilapidated schools nationwide under the recently-tabled Budget 2023.

She said these funds were earmarked to be utilised for 380 schools with such problems across the country.

“Overall, we have RM900mil for all schools, not just for Sabah and Sarawak. But we will relook at the list of schools in both states,” she said during the inspection at the school which was also attended by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah and Sarawak Affairs, Special Tasks) Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali.

The minister added that some 980 schools in the country have been listed as dilapidated since 2016.

The Budget 2023 tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Friday (Feb 24) saw the government’s focus on education with the Education Ministry getting the biggest slice of the pie with a total allocation of RM55.2bil.

Anwar, who is also Finance Minister, said this included RM2.3bil for the upgrade of dilapidated school buildings and infrastructures in 380 poor schools, maintenance of school amenities and building of OKU-friendly amenities, and building of open halls for school assemblies.

According to her written reply on the issue in the Dewan Rakyat previously, Fadhlina said the ministry has identified 289 dilapidated schools all over Sabah, with 64 of them certified as being under the scale of seven, or unsafe, by the Public Works Department.

After Ranau, which has the highest number of dilapidated of schools (44), is the interior Pensiangan area with 34, followed by Beaufort (29), Keningau (21), Tuaran (18), Kudat (17), Silam (15) and 14 each in Libaran and Sepanggar.

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