Dr Annuar: Sarawak’s free tertiary education not political gimmick

KUCHING (Dec 28): Sarawak’s decision to give free tertiary education to its people is not a political gimmick to win the election, said state ​​Deputy Minister of Education, Innovation and Talent Development Datuk Dr Annuar Rapaee.

Speaking in a Zoom interview today, he said the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) has never pledged to the people that it will implement the free tertiary education policy during the last state election in 2021.

In fact, he said the decision only came after the coalition won the election.

“I want you to highlight that the GPS government never promised this. We never talked about this during the election campaign. The policy comes after GPS wins the election in 2021.

“We never politicise this policy. We never promised this during our election campaign. And this policy is going to be implemented before the upcoming state election in 2026,” he said.

Elaborating, Dr Annuar, who is also the Nangka assemblyman, said the decision was merely for the sake of Sarawakians, especially in developing its young talent and skills.

He pointed out Sarawak could not afford to lose its young talent just because of their socio-economic background to not further their studies.

Thus, he said GPS, as the ruling parties that govern the state government, should provide ways to help Sarawakian students especially those from low-income households to access tertiary education.

“Our GPS is not like other parties that were promised a lot during the election but when elected, they never delivered. This is what we call political will, not political gimmick,” he added.

Dr Annuar also believed that this policy would encourage young Sarawakians in schools to have some sort of realisation on what they should do for them to achieve their dream.

“This will motivate students, especially those poor students, to study hard because when they know they have the chance to pursue studies in our state-owned local universities, they can plan on what they should do to enable them to pursue their studies,” he added.