Statement Made by Dong Zong

October 12, 2019

Budget 2020 Augurs Consistent Stability

Higher Allocations for Chinese Schools Acknowledged

In terms of education, Dong Zong is convinced Budget 2020 sustains the government’s policy stance last year, which emphasises on fiscal stability. Meanwhile, Dong Zong acknowledges higher allocations for Chinese schools in the Federal Budget.

Budget 2020 is consistent with the government’s expenditure pattern in education a year ago, whereby it substantially allocated funds to vernacular schools of other streams while paying attention to the development of vocational education. First of all, the Education Ministry remained the biggest allocation receiver with RM 64.1 billion in Budget 2020, an increase of RM3.9 billion or 6.48% from RM60.2 billion in Budget 2019. This reflects the government’s commitments and emphasis in the provision of quality education to her people. Although the government of the day has always been generous in terms of education, there is always a disproportion between the amount of expenditure and the effectiveness of education based on past experiences. Therefore, as education allocation increases over the years, the most immediate challenges for the government today is to improve the quality of public education in the most effective measure.

Secondly, Dong Zong commends Budget 2020’s higher allocation for independent Chinese secondary schools which is up to RM15 million, from RM12 million previously; concurrently, the allocation to national-typed secondary schools also reached RM20 million high, from RM15 million in Budget 2019. Apart from maintaining the allocation for both national-typed Chinese and Tamil primary schools, the government also allocated an additional RM12 million for utility and sewerage purposes for 2,000 government-aided schools, including Chinese primary schools. In allocations to all vernacular schools, the government’s decision of not neglecting Chinese and Tamil primary schools appears to be more reasonable and fairer than the previous administration. We hope that the government will continue to pay attention to the advancement of Chinese and Tamil primary schools, ensuring funding is allocated based on their actual needs. However, the setback being, Budget 2020 does not include the three private Chinese university colleges in the government’s annual grant allocation. We also call upon the government to contribute towards non-profit educational institutions. For example, providing tax benefits to independent Chinese secondary schools without seeking special exemption from the Finance Minister.

In addition, special needs students also were taken into consideration in Budget 2020, with a RM23 million allocation to mitigate learning barriers by improving national school facilities. We commend the government’s attention on special needs students, and we hope the same treatment is extended to national-typed schools likewise.

Last but not least, we agree with the government’s focus on vocational education, by increasing the allocation from RM 5.7 billion previously to RM5.9 billion. With the development in artificial intelligence, workplace will be disrupted and changes will take place accordingly, the relevancy of vocational education should correspond with technology development. We expect a more comprehensive policy for vocational education from the government.