Education Ministry must not waste money on 1Bestarinet
DAP National Deputy Chairman and MP for Kepong Dr Tan Seng Giaw insists that Malaysian Education Ministry appoints a truly reliable company to implement 1Bestarinet.
On 1.9.2011, Dr Tan comments on 1Bestarinet project..
Countries in the world including Malaysia are trying to use modern digital technology and infrastructure. For example, Malaysia began in 2004 to introduce Scoolnet. But, seven years later, we are still in the dark about the digital technology provided and the expenditure. We shall pursue these. How many tens of millions of ringgits have been spent?
Now, the ministry is said to be planning 1Bestarinet to provide the most up-to-date digital technology to 9,924 schools in the country. It will replace Schoolnet.
It seems that the ministry opened 1Bestarinet tender from May 5 to 31,11. From the 19 companies which submitted tender, six had been shortlisted, namely, Celcom Axiata Bhd, Jaring Communications,Maxis Bhd, YTL Communications, Multimedia Synergy Corp.,Telecom Malaysia Bhd/Time DotCom Bhd.The Government must be transparent, letting the public know the companies' resources, the ability to deliver as promised and accountability. We do not want a company that has no resources and no capability, going only for profits.
Although the ministry is supposed to have a mechanism to supervise a company that is appointed, it lacks efficiency as seen in the monitoring of the Schoolnet project. The Budget Session of Parliament begins on October 3, 11. We shall bring up Schoolnet and 1Bestarnet projects.
Tan Seng Giaw
posted by Tan Seng Giaw @ 9/01/2011 04:08:00 PM
2 Comments:
Pakatan Rakyat MPs like your goodself must ensure that this project does not proceed.
We can already foresee where half of that huge sum of public money will go. By focusing on technology as the answer to improve our education system and by awarding the project to telcos, we're already halfway to failure.
Any fool knows that ICT has very little impact on learning outcomes for children. Everyone knows that quality teachers is the number one factor that has the most impact on learning outcomes for our children in school. This has been proven year after year by the world's top-performing education systems.
Remember the Smart Schools Project which was started when Najib was Education Minister? Smart Schools project was envisioned to reinvent our education system using ICT and was one of the 7 MSC Flagship applications. Telekom Malaysia led the consortium to develop and implement the Smart Schools System. Time was given perpertual contract to supply and maintain personal computers for the smart schools.
What has happened to the multi-million ringgit project? Todate, billions has already been wasted on the project while TM and Time profit at the expense of taxpayers. The Smart Schools Project has failed to show any tangible result, let alone its impact on learning outcomes.
Just visit some of the 88 pilot schools in the project. At Seri Bintang Selatan in Cheras, the computers are all staked up in one room and were hardly ever used. In Taman Desa, KL, there is a stark monument of the project's ultimate failure - an abandoned Smart School building project.
Please put a stop to mindless waste of public money in the name of education.
Thank you for taking the effort to bring 1Bestarinet issue in Parliament.
Dr tan, 1bestarinet was awarded yesterday to YTL. This project is worth 4.5b! They awarded it just like that, no clarifications, no POC, no negotiations. I urge you to sent a message to parliament that this is a grave mistake. They are better ways to spend this money to improve our education system.
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