The early childhood care and education program in the remote regions of Sabah needs a total revamp if we are to bring quality education for underserved communities in Malaysia. This come into light during our recent trip to remote villages in Pensiangan. The location of Schools are very scattered over long distances making is difficult to commute to schools. This is particular very difficult for children attending preschool classes. The children attending preschool classes are too young to be away from their parents or living on boarding hostels. This has prompted communities to establish their own community preschools.
However many communities still conduct preschool classes in community hall, church building or utilize some abandoned buildings as preschool buildings. The poor conditions of the preschool buildings with dilapidated facilities has prompted DAP Pensiangan to launch a program to assist this communities to have access to a better education facilities. As a start DAP conducted visits to remote villages to establish a baseline to guide the formulation of the program. The major problems identified mainly of preschool teacher’s Training, teacher’s allowance, Pre School Building and teaching aids.
During the visit, we interviewed many village leaders and community pre-schools for example in Kg Bantul, Village elder En.Elap Ringo Garing, he laments the poor condition of their preschool building that was built about 6 years ago but the location was not at a suitable site where it is prone to be flooded and part of the school building is already damaged due to soil erosion. Elap also pointed out most of the chairs and desk in the school is already broken and community did some repairs however some are beyond repair.
Another villager En.Kotog, expressed their concern about the safety of their children when going to the school, however they have no choice but to continue to send their children to the community pre-school because they cannot afford to commute to nearby SK Babalitan located about 50 minutes boat ride upriver through dangerous rapids of the Sungai Longongon. They also cannot leave their children there to attend school because they are too young to be left away from their parents. That is why the need for community pre-school at every village is very important.
According to Muming Pulutan, one of the community preschool teachers, he has written few times to the welfare department regarding the condition of their school building and requested for replacement of school equipment but they have yet to see any action. It is interesting to note that these community preschool is a program under the district welfare department which we think might not be the best agency to implement and monitor such program unless with close collaboration with district education office and some experienced NGOs.
Earlier we visited the Pre-School building under construction at Kg Tinanduk, this building was initiated by the Community with assistance from Catholic student Volunteers studying in Johor. Unfortunately the building project lacked funding to complete the project prompting Impian Sabah to lend assistance to complete the preschool building. This pre School building will be a community learning centre (CLC) that will also serve as place to conduct community programs such as socio economic development training, women’s activities and other learning activities. This will be a second such centre in Pensiangan after the success of the first CLC in Kg Lirung made possible through support from PACOS Trust.
DAP Pensiangan are committed to do its part to bring better access to quality education by advocating for a better rural education program. DAP also bring better learning experience for rural children through reading camp, education camp that is implemented by Impian Sabah Education Program. The education camps is organised during school holidays aimed to exposed interactive learning and smart studying techniques for primary school children and secondary school students. We appeal to any members of the public to come and support any of this communities to gain access to better education facilities.