KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 — Putrajaya’s failure to set up adequate technological infrastructure support for rural schools is a key reason why the multi-billion ringgit 1BestariNet project will continue to leave rural students trailing far behind their city counterparts, DAP’s Zairil Khir Johari said today.
The educational programme designed to narrow the gap between urban students and their peers in geographically-challenged areas in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) has not worked, the Bukit Bendera MP added.
Citing the Auditor-General’s 2013 Report, he said it was “alarming” that only between 0.01 and 4.96 per cent of students and teachers in the 8,807 schools outfitted with the VLE system have logged in as of March 2014.
“This is an alarming figure, given that RM663 million has already spent over the last two and a half years,” he said in a statement.
“While such a proposition sounds great in theory, the unfortunate reality is quite the opposite. In fact, the Ministry’s approach of implementing a universal roll-out across all 10,000 schools in our country would actually widen the urban-rural gap,” Zairil added.
The third series of the Auditor-General’s report, released last week, found that not only was usage of the VLE system poor at below 5 per cent, the system’s coverage did not extend to the entire school compound at more than half of the 501 schools polled in the audit.
The national audit also reported that 89.1 per cent of 46 schools tested and 70.3 per cent of 491 survey respondents reported unsatisfactory broadband speeds as they averaged between 0.2Mbps and 3.62 Mbps, lower than the promised 4Mbps to 20Mbps.
Zairil today acknowledged that there have been success stories, such as in the case of SJKC Sam Tet in Ipoh, Perak, which registered daily VLE participation of 20.6 per cent among students and 41.7 per cent among teachers, helped by strong support by the Parent-Teacher Association and regular access to the Internet at home.
The DAP assistant national publicity secretary noted, however, that this only means that the VLE requires strong technological infrastructure, trained and competent teaching staff and the full support of all stakeholders to be successful.
“Unfortunately, such a scenario is simply impossible to replicate across 10,000 schools, 500,000 teachers and 5.5 million students. This is especially so in the case of rural schools, which suffer inadequacies in every critical area. Not only are rural schools under-equipped in terms of laptops, projectors and computer labs, they would also suffer from bad Internet coverage.
“At the same time, it is unlikely that their teachers would be competently trained, while there is very little possibility of the students having computers and Internet access at home,” he said.
Zairil stressed that until these basic issues are addressed, the 1BestariNet system will only serve to widen the urban-rural divide as well-supported urban schools will have a clear advantage in accessing the system over their less connected peers.
The 1BestariNet project, which aims to provide high-speed 4G internet access to 10,000 schools, was started over two years ago.
Last November, business weekly The Edge reported YTL Power International Bhd executive director Datuk Yeoh Seok Hong as saying that his firm had won the project through a competitive tender, beating other companies like Telekom Malaysia Berhad.
The government will fork out a total of RM3 billion over 15 years to pay for the 4G network infrastructure and the maintenance of the Frog Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), The Edge reported.
It also reported last November that 10 million students, parents and teachers are expected to get IDs, which would enable them to use the VLE and get free internet with broadband quota of 200MB for a year.
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