Warisan rep moots Borneo education system for Sabah and Sarawak

KOTA KINABALU, Nov 3 — A Parti Warisan assemblyman has proposed a federal-ratified “Borneo Education System” for Sabah and Sarawak that will better serve students in the two states.

Tungku assemblyman Assafal Alian said that over the years, the education system has been engineered to erase Sabah and Sarawak’s significance in the formation of Malaysia and allow their rights to go unheard.

“It is obvious that throughout the years, unseen hands have repeatedly interfered in our education system, causing many deviations with important facts being omitted, most notably, on the formation of the Federation of Malaysia and our inherent rights and privileges under MA63,” he said in a statement today.

Sabah and Sarawak had initially agreed to let the federal government to manage their education system during the formation of Malaysia, but he said that they should now be given the right to shape their children’s education.

“What we wanted back then is an education system that will produce students of an international quality who will one day assist in the development of Sabah through meritorious appointment as governmental and industries leaders,” he said.

Assafal added that a different assessment system was needed because, unlike schoolchildren in peninsular Malaysia who can spend more time on extracurricular activities due to their superior academic environment, their peers in rural Sabah and Sarawak lag behind academically due to poverty, logistic challenges, insufficient teaching equipment and poor facilities.

He urged the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah state government to discuss the matter with their Sarawak counterparts and draw up a blueprint for a separate education system that is more relevant to and practical for both Borneo regions.

He said the idea was not to break away from the federal Education Ministry but to assert Sabah’s and Sarawak’s position as the founding partners of the federation.

This would also ensure that the huge annual budget allocations worth billions of ringgit for the Education Ministry will be spent on achieving the aspirations and current/future needs of both regions, he added.

“If the Federal Education Ministry can come out with ‘Palestinian Solidarity Week’, then obviously, they also can come out with the ‘MA63 Week’ too. But the question here is whether the GRS-led Sabah government has the determination to do so,” he said.

But he said that Sabah and Sarawak must reach a consensus on this matter first, and thereafter, present their case as a united front to the federal government.

Assafal said the proposal by the Sarawak government to create its own state assessment examination like the now abolished Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) was a good move.

“I believe intermittent assessments, similar to UPSR and PT3 examinations (for Form Three students abolished in 2022), are required in Sabah,” he said.

Assafal said this would allow schools in Sabah to continuously evaluate the performance of their students and intervene, if necessary, before final Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) exams commence.