KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is among the states with a high number of dilapidated schools, said the Education Minister.
Fadhlina Sidek said the Ranau district alone had 44 such schools.
She pointed out that most structures or buildings in a dilapidated state ranged between the scale of six and seven, meaning they were unsafe and must be replaced.
“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 Pekan Kinarut in Papar district yesterday.
Fadhlina said RM900mil had been allocated to her ministry to resolve the issue of dilapidated schools nationwide under the recently tabled Budget 2023.
She said the funds were earmarked for 380 schools.
With her at the school was Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah, Sarawak Affairs and Special Functions) Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali.
According to her written reply on the issue in the Dewan Rakyat previously, Fadhlina said the ministry had 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.
Besides Ranau, the districts with a high number of dilapidated schools are interior Pensiangan area with 34, followed by Beaufort (29), Keningau (21), Tuaran (18), Kudat (17), Silam (15) and 14 each in Libaran and Sepanggar.
