PUTRAJAYA, Sept 12 — The construction of new schools under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (MOE) will take into account design aspects that are conducive, easy to maintain and have an optimum impact on students and teachers, said Senior Education Minister Datuk Mohd Radzi Md Jidin.
He said new schools that will be built needed to focus on matters pertaining to basic infrastructure but able to have a big impact on the people using them and, at the same time, ensure every sen from the allocation given by the government is properly spent.
“What’s important is that the designs must not focus on ‘cosmetics’ but ensure every allocation spent provides optimum impact.
“If we can reduce the costs of the unnecessary cosmetics, then the allocation that we have can be used for other developments,” he told the media after attending the “Majlis Transformasi Pendidikan: Infrastruktur Pendidikan yang Selamat dan Kondusif” (Education Transformation Council: Safe and Conducive Educational Infrastructure) here today.
Radzi said this included the frequently brought up issue of school toilet designs because existing facilities were based on wet toilets and did not have proper ventilation, thus resulting in some students skipping breakfast just to avoid having to use the school toilets.
“In this context, when we are looking at designs with better ventilation so that toilets can be dried faster and don’t smell,” he said.
He said the MOE would always discuss with the Public Works Department (JKR) to determine the designs of, not just new schools to be built, but also new buildings to be constructed at existing schools.
“We go to the ground, we collect inputs and we discuss at the ministerial level first to see the implementation feasibility and then we’ll discuss with the JKR regarding the design for the projects to be carried out,” he said.
Meanwhile, Radzi said the MOH would improve existing guidelines on contributions in the form of construction of open halls and walkways by outsiders to schools.
This, he said, was necessary because if not built according to specifications, it might cost more to make the changes later on.
He also said the guidelines needed to be improved to cut down on bureaucracy and thus speed up the filtering process carried out by the ministry with regard to such contributions.
In another development, Radzi said almost 30 per cent of more than 2,000 schools nationwide had completed the legalisation process on land ownership.
He said the legalisation process was conducted to ensure all land ownership for the construction of MOE-supervised schools belonged to the director-general of the Department of Lands and Mines (JKPTG) or the government.
According to him, of the more than 10,000 schools nationwide, it was found that the land ownership of over 2,000 of them did not belong to the JKPTG or the government.
“What has happened is that, for example, if payment was made in the 1980s, the grant has yet to be issued till today and the title has not been changed. It looks simple but as long as this matter is not resolved, if we are to do anything (development), other issues might crop up.
“So, we’ve decided to settle these land issues with the cooperation of state governments so that this matter can be resolved,” he said. — Bernama
