A total of 120 dilapidated schools in Sabah have been undergoing restoration work using the industrial building system (IBS) since the beginning of this year.

Sabah Education Department director Datuk Hajah Maimunah Suhaibul said schools in Sabah have been fortunate for receiving much government attention in the area of education.

"The Chief Minister Tan Sri Musa Haji Aman and his group of state leaders have been on the ground assessing for themselves the schools that needed help, and many of them have been working with the parents and teachers in making successes of school activities" she said in a Teachers' Day celebration officiated by Musa at the Ranau Sports Complex yesterday.

Also present was Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Masidi Manjun and the director-general of education, Datuk Dr Amin Senin.

Maimunah noted that schools in Sabah have by and large improved their performances in the UPSR (assessment examinations for primary school pupils), SPM (government examinations for form 5 students) and STPM (sixth form) in 2017.

The better results were attributed to the students themselves, helped by the respective parent-teacher associations, the teaching staff, the schools and the education officials.

"The success has also been the results of better school facilities, better teachers in line with the focus on classroom assessment.”

On the Teachers' Day theme of ‘Guru Pemancu Transformasi Pendidikan' (teachers are agents of education transformation), Maimunah said this is as should be because teachers are not only teaching, but also molders and shapers of the character of the children they are responsible for.

She commended schools which have gone international by pursuing twinning programmes with schools outside the country.

"Schools such as Maktab Sabah (the former Sabah College), SM St Michael (Penampang), SMK Sanzac (Sembulan) and SMK Bandaraya have consistently done well on the international level.

"What is even more impressive is that even schools in the rural areas have also carved their names on the international state, and they include SMK Bugaya II (Semporna) which won the gold medal in the recent International Intellectual Property Invention, Innovation and Technology Exposition in Thailand with the creation of Origami Grille.”

She also commended SMK Sanzac for winning the National-level Inspire Kindness project title in Shah Alam last on Apr 15.