Sarawak Mulls Technical Education Cooperation With India

KUCHING (Sarawak, Malaysia), Nov 9 (Bernama) -- Sarawak is keen to forge a technical education cooperation with India to formulate and implement suitable technical training programmes for locals in line with the demand of skilled workers for the East Malaysia state of Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (Score). Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud said during his working visit to India recently the state goverment had uncovered many potential areas that could be jointly developed such as in the areas of technical education cooperation between Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) and selected universities there. "We are looking at lecturers and instructors (in technical education) from India," he said at the launch of the book entitled "From Belacan To FM" written by former Sarawak and Johor RTM Director Affandi Tahir, here on Wednesday. Taib said the state goverment was looking towards providing relevant technical skills for local projects particularly for the Tanjung Manis Halal Park, the first halal park in East Malaysia, for upstream and downstream manufacturing activities located in the Score areas. Without divulging further details, he said, the halal park had enormous potentials and expected to generate an investment of one trillion ringgit by 2020 due to the high demand for halal products in the global market. On the book launch, he praised the author of the book as he came from a humble beginning and rose to the top of his profession despite battling poverty and having failed to pass his Senior Cambridge examination. He said the book would provide a better insight for all on the struggles of the rural people in Sarawak to gain success. Written in English, the 96-page book is being sold at RM35 per copy and it chronicles the behind the scenes exprience faced by Affandi from the poverty stricken village in Rajang to being a senior goverment servant at the federal level. (US$1=RM3.13) The book also revealed many unknown information on the Chief Minister including Taib's short stint in broadcasting in the 60's working as a news translator from English to the Melanau language for Radio Sarawak with a meagre payment of RM15 per item. -- BERNAMA Malaysia