Kuching: The Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE) has been urged to place greater and more comprehensive focus on rural schools in Sarawak and ensure they are not neglected in the implementation of the nation’s digital education transformation agenda.
Senator Larry Asap said this is important to reduce the digital facilities gap between urban and rural schools.
“MOE should give prompt and appropriate consideration to providing all forms of digital facilities needed in rural schools, including learning devices, quality internet access, digital connectivity, as well as complete learning spaces,” he said in a statement.
He said this while welcoming MOE’s plans to accelerate digitalisation in the country’s education sector to facilitate classroom management, teaching, and learning.
According to Larry, technology-based education, such as virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), big data, and the Internet of Things (IoT), can engage students and diversify classroom teaching and learning approaches.
However, he questioned the extent to which such educational technologies have truly been implemented in rural schools in Sarawak.
“If good policies and planning like this fail to reach rural areas, it will impact students’ development and achievements in those schools. The education gap between urban and rural areas will continue to widen,” he said.
He also stressed that teachers and students in rural schools deserve equal opportunities and educational facilities to ensure the country’s education system can be developed inclusively.
According to him, the need to strengthen digital education in Sarawak is urgent as there is still a significant imbalance in educational development between urban and rural areas.
“I hope the government, through MOE, will give serious attention to the needs of rural students so that they can compete and stand on equal footing with students in urban schools in today’s digital education era,” he said.
Larry, who is also DAP Sarawak Assistant Secretary, added that in the fourth phase of education digitalisation, the government has allocated RM230 million to provide 31,724 digital devices to 1,801 schools nationwide from 2025 to 2030.
