By Karen Bong
KUCHING, Nov 8: Serembu assemblyman Miro Simuh today urged the state government to ink SK Serembu in the list of schools to be rebuilt or upgraded as currently 235 pupils are crammed in six classrooms.
This school, he told the State Legislative Assembly (DUN), served children from six villages and one housing estate.
“With RM81.7 million allocated for dilapidated schools, we hope this school can be rebuilt from the current six classrooms to 12 classrooms,” he said when debating the Supply (2019) Bill, 2018.
Currently, he said Bau District has four secondary schools serving an area with a population of 64,000. The schools are SMK Bau with 1,800 students, SMK Lake with 1,800 students, SMK Paku with 1,600 students and newly operated SMK Singai with 400 students.
“All these secondary schools were built to cater between 800 to 1,000 students. Based on the current conditions, most of the schools are overcrowded.
“With the rapidly increasing population in Bau District, we deeply need another secondary school to meet demand.”
On tourism, Miro proposed to upgrade the Siniawan Heritage Town facade and lighting system that cost around RM500,000 to attract more visitors and tourists from near and as far as Serembu constituency, which offered at least six stunning tourism products.
“Siniawan Heritage Town, The Buddhist Village, Paku Hot Spring, Brooke Heritage Site, the Majestic Fairy Cave and Krokong/Tringgus nature trail, to name a few, are the major tourist attractions in my area.
“The little town (of Siniawan) is home to the famous Siniawan Country and Western Music Festival. This year, about 17,000 people visited Siniawan during the five days of the festival.”
He noted that the development of tourism projects at Mount Serembu and Brooke Heritage site had been put on hold by the federal government.
“Thus, I humbly urged the state government to take over the project that amounts to RM1.6 million as this project is one of the many promised projects by the previous federal government during the last 11th State Election. With the completion of this project, we can project a big number of tourists visiting the site,” he added. — DayakDaily
