KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Society for the Deaf appeals to the Ministry of Education to set up Form 4 and Form 5 classes for deaf students in Sabah.

Its president, Francis Yong, also hoped that the government would look into setting up primary and secondary schools for the deaf at the same location for better coordination.

At present, he said there were only SK Pendidikan Khas Tuaran and SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin which provide formal education for deaf students in Sabah.

“However, SMK Peter Mojuntin only provides classes for deaf students up to Form 3.

“The school has been appealing to the government to set up Form 4 and Form 5 classes for the deaf for over 10 years but to no avail,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.

Yong said the lack of Form 4 and Form 5 classes for secondary deaf students was highly detrimental to the students as they had no chance of sitting for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) and therefore would not be qualified to obtain diploma certificates for whatever courses they wanted to take in the future.

“The deaf students will be losing out on employment if they are unable to obtain a diploma certificate.”

He pointed out that the deaf students could only continue Form 4 and Form 5 studies in West Malaysia or Keningau Vocational College.

But the vocational school only offers limited courses for the deaf, such as electrical engineering and furniture making, which are not suitable for female students, he said.

“Although we have highlighted these issues several times to the previous government, we have not seen any action taken by the relevant ministry, nor positive development so far.”

With the change of both the federal and state governments, Yong said the society would make courtesy calls to the Minister of Health and People’s Wellbeing Stephen Wong and Minister of Education and Innovation Datuk Dr Yusof Yacob to highlight education issues faced by deaf students in Sabah.

He fervently hoped that Form 4 and Form 5 classes for deaf students could be set up in Sabah as soon as possible as 20 deaf students would be graduating from Form 3 at SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin at the end of this year.

On another note, Yong called on the State Government to instruct district offices, clinics and hospitals to report deaf children to the Welfare Department to ensure they could receive education early in life.

He said some pupils who enrolled in SK Pendidikan Khas Tuaran had no early childhood education, nor were they trained in sign language.

As such, he said these children could not catch up with academic education.

He said registering deaf children with the Welfare Department would enable the children to receive assistance and formal education at an early age.