[BUNGARAYA] ETV - height of irresponsibility (fwd)

["M.G.G. Pillai" <pillai@mgg.pc.my>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2000 10:21:19 +0800
From: DAP MALAYSIA <dap.malaysia@pobox.com>
Reply-To: bungaraya@listserv.net-gw.com
To: bungaraya@listserv.net-gw.com
Subject: [BUNGARAYA] ETV - height of irresponsibility

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Speech (2)  by DAP National Chairman Lim Kit Siang at the DAP Siputeh
Solidarity Dinner in Kuala Lumpur on Friday,  3rd March  2000 at 9 p.m.:

Height of irresponsibility for the Education Ministry to switch the
transmission of TV Pendidikan education programme from RTM2 to Astro when
less than a quarter of the 9,000 schools have been installed with the Astro
equipment
===============================================

The Education Minister Tan Sri Musa Mohamad said in today's press that  TV
Pendidikan education programmes will continue to be transmitted over the
Astro satellite television channel as it is more cost-effective.

He  said it would cost about RM18 million till 2001 to equip all schools
with the Astro equipment and after that, the annual cost would be RM400,000
as opposed to having to pay RTM2 RM5 million annually.

The figures given by the Education Minister has come as a surprise as no
Member of Parliament in the past had been aware that RTM had been billing
the Education Ministry RM5 million annually  just to transmit the Pendidikan TV.

Musa should give a full accounting of how much the Education Ministry had
paid RTM2 for transmitting Education TV for each year in the past two
decades, and why the RTM2 is so uncompetitive when compared to Astro.

Be that as it may, it is the height of irresponsibility on the part of the
Education Ministry to switch the transmission of TV Pendidikan education
programme from RTM2 to Astro when less than a quarter of the 9,000 schools
have been installed with the Astro equipment.

According to Musa, about 2,000 schools had been installed with the Astro
equipment to receive educational programmes. He suggested that those schools
which do not have the required equipment should  get the recordings of the
programmes from other schools.

This appears to be a most unprofessional way for a non-politician former
academician to be running the Education Ministry.

Just before coming to the dinner, I visited the website of the Technology
Education Division of the Education Ministry which is responsible for the TV
Pendidikan. Its  slogan is "Technology for Smart Education" ("Teknologi
Untuk Pendidikan Bestari") but it is not a very "smart site" - as its daily
schedule for TV Pendidikan starting from January 17, 2000 suddenly stopped
at 3rd February 2000, with no update for the past one month!  

Will  all the 9000 primary and secondary schools be finally equipped with
Astro sets by next year to receive the Education TV?  This seems unlikely
and the Education Minister should give the country the latest update with
regard to the last report in the previous Parliament of over 1,000 schools
still without electricity supply.

In the past, schools without electricity had been supplied with fax and
computers which are left to waste because they could not be used - and I
hope that in the new millennium, we are not going to have schools without
power but still receiving Astro equipments in the year 2001 so that on
paper, all the 9,000 schools in the country would have been supplied with
Astro equipments - even just to put them in the storeroom!

- Lim Kit Siang -



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