Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad speaks during a press conference after the tabling of Budget 2019 in Parliament November 2, 2018. — Picture by Mukhriz Hazim

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2 ― The whopping RM60.24 billion allocation to the Education Ministry is because the future generation needs to have more knowledge, says Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He said the government has prioritised education to prepare students to face the future.

"Education is extremely important, I wanted to be Education Minister, but they didn't allow me to," he joked.

"But still, we need to educate our people because the knowledge field has changed considerably, nowadays students need to learn more things.

"Before, they read about the history of British empire, the geography of England but they did not study on our own geography. But now we have to learn about IT, technology, science, mathematics, algorithms... all these things we need to know or we will be left behind,” he stressed.

Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching echoed Dr Mahathir's sentiments, saying that the increment from RM59.98 billion last year was fortunate.

She also said the focus this year will be on infrastructure development, with the ministry having more money to build schools.

"The development expenses for primary education increased from RM125 to RM259 million, so this is a huge increment.

"It's more than half. For example, for secondary schools, this year we got RM272 million, but next year we are going to spend RM388 million for secondary education.

"Also Sabah and Sarawak, this year they only got RM62 million but next year we are going to increase it to RM148 million for school development there, especially the rural areas," she said.

Teo also added that the government remains committed to the various vernacular schools, including Islamic religious schools, by maintaining their budget allocations.