Simon Dattan Jihek (fourth left), who has scored 9As in the SPM examination, receives the academic incentives from Dr Jerip.

KUCHING (Jan 29): The state government views seriously the needs in producing quality education and providing support for students to further their studies in professional fields at local and foreign universities, said Datuk Dr Jerip Susil.

The Deputy Minister of Transport said for this reason, the government has established five international elite schools throughout the state to groom excellent students and fund their tertiary education, both locally and abroad.

“The government does not practise favouritism in providing educational assistance to Sarawakian students.

“Those with excellent exam results and are eligible will be helped and funded,” said Dr Jerip, who is also Mambong assemblyman at the presentation of academic incentives organised by the Kuching Biperoh Association (KBA) on Friday night.

He called on students and their parents especially those in the rural areas to take advantage of the opportunities and scholarships offered by the Sarawak government through Yayasan Sarawak.

A total of 39 outstanding students from the Bidayuh Biperoh clan who scored excellent results in Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia and Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia in 2019, 2020 and 2021 academic years received their educational incentives from KBA.

Dr Jerip, also the patron of the association, said the achievements of Biperoh students in the field of education have shown a significant improvement based on the increasing number of students who have successfully continued their studies at universities and institutions of higher learning.

“This is indeed a very good sign that we should be proud of and to keep up in order to enable us to compete with other races in various fields and at the global level,” he said, citing on the increase of the number of students taking up professional majors such as in medicine, engineering, law and finance.

Also speaking at the event was KBA president Penghulu Richard Deho who noted that the awarding of educational incentives was in recognition of the excellent students’ efforts and as motivation for the others.