KUCHING, Nov 22 — Second and third-year higher education students at state-owned higher learning institutions (IPTs) are expected to benefit from the free tertiary education policy initiated by the Sarawak government come 2026, said Datuk Dr Annuar Rapa’ee.
The Deputy Education, Innovation and Talent Development minister said by 2026, the state government would be able to gauge the number of students in each of the five higher learning institutions.
“With regard to the current students who are already in the second or third year come 2026, when this policy has been implemented, whether they will also benefit from free education, of course.
“This is because by then we will know how many students are studying in each of the universities, where the current capacity is about 4,000 students.
“Therefore, if all of them are given free (education), this means that we have about 25,000 students throughout the whole state of Sarawak who will benefit from this free education,” he said during the question-and-answer sessions at the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) Sitting here today.
He was responding to a question from Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh (PSB-Bawang Assan) who has asked whether all existing students enrolled in state-owned higher learning institutions will be given free education when the policy is implemented.
Dr Annuar said the free education for state-owned tertiary institutions initiative, which was announced by Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg in August, is a “very massive” policy that means a lot for the future generation of Sarawak.
“Since then, our ministry has engaged with the main stakeholders particularly, the five state-owned higher institutions namely Curtin University, Swinburne University, University of Technology Sarawak (UTS), i-CATS University College, and Centre for Technology Excellence Sarawak (Centexs) as well as the Economic Planning Unit Sarawak, State Financial Secretary, Yayasan Sarawak and State Education Department.
“Three labs have already been done to deliberate on the strategies of implementation of this noble policy,” he said.
To Wong’s question on whether students from international schools set up by the Sarawak government would be entitled to free education, Dr Annuar said the main objective of these international schools was to provide an opportunity to rural students and those from the lower income group to benefit from education of the schools.
“One of the main objectives is that they will be able to enrol in all the universities particularly state-owned universities.
“With this policy, it is actually parallel where we start them in the international schools and by 2026, hopefully we will be able to provide free tertiary education to all students in Sarawak,” he said. — Borneo Post Online
