Dr Annuar: S’wak sets up steering committee to improve rural students’ SPM performance

SERIAN (Jan 19): The Sarawak Education, Innovation, and Talent Development Ministry has established a steering committee to formulate plans to boost performance of Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) candidates from schools in the rural areas.

Its deputy minister Datuk Dr Annuar Rapaee said the plans would be in terms of implementations of various programmes catered for the students.

Such efforts, he added, will contribute towards improving the State Grade Average (GPN) as Sarawak’s GPN currently stands at 5.07. The national grade average currently stands at 4.71.

A lower GPN value indicates better performance by the candidates.

“The state government has increased our education budget from RM10 million to RM15 million. If we are to provide extra classes of 40 subjects, to me it is irrelevant.

“So we just focus on the important subjects such as History, English as well as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.

“We have identified 98 rural schools with grade average below the national level, so we want to focus on these schools,” he said when met by reporters after officiating at the Peratus Layak Sijil Serian (PLaSS) 2.0 programme for History Subject at SMK Taee here today.

Dr Annuar said with improved GPN values among rural secondary schools in Sarawak, this would ensure they can enjoy the benefits of enrolling into tertiary education.

This was because the state government had already set a target that by 2026 to provide free tertiary education for Sarawakian students in state-owned higher learning institutions, he added.

“We don’t have a specific target (on how many rural students enter tertiary education by then) because we want everybody to come in. But before that we need to improve our grade average annually,” he said.

The second edition of the PLaSS for History Subject programme, which began in late December last year, involved 2,211 SPM candidates from eight schools in the Serian Division.

The programme is supported by the Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) and Serian Iban Remun Association (Sira).