Efforts to get 25,000 Indonesian kids in Sabah to school.

By Olivia Miwil
Tuesday, August 18 2015

Pictures by Izhari Ariffin

KOTA KINABALU: Indonesia authorities will find ways to enable 25,000 children of Indonesian workers in Sabah to attend school.

Indonesian Consul-General in Kota Kinabalu Akhmad Irfan said there were about 50,000 children of 400,000 registered workers in the state.

The authority have established about 200 learning centres for 23,700 pupils.

“The Malaysian government has been supportive of our moves to provide education for the children.

“We are beefing up efforts and will work with other agencies to help the rest of the children to study."

Speaking during the 70th Indonesia Independence Day celebration at the Consulate-General here yesterday, Ahmad said it was compulsory for the people of Indonesia to attend 12 years of schooling.

Some 4,000 people attended the ceremony which began as early as 8am.  

Akhmad reminded Indonesians to comply with rules and respect the customs in Sabah.

“Breaking any rule will affect the relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia.” 

Akhmad said registered Indonesians workers in Sabah were in good health as they had undergone medical check-ups upon entering the state.

He said the workers could seek medical care when they were sick as they had been issued a special card from Indonesia, which has medical insurance coverage.

Last week, it was reported most of the leprosy cases detected among immigrants in Sabah.

A state Health Department spokesman said on average there were 100 leprosy cases every year and about 60 per cent of them were carried by the immigrants.

As of May 9, the health ministry recorded 30 leprosy cases in Sabah which showed a decrease of 34.8 per cent as compared to 46 cases during the same period last year. 


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