Sarawak to close all schools in Bintulu, Tatau and Sebauh temporarily from Sept 7 to Sept 11 as persistent haze continues to push air quality to unhealthy and hazardous levels in parts of the state.
The Sarawak Education Department said the five-day closure involves 563 primary schools with 108,477 pupils and 84 secondary schools with 90,082 students, affecting almost 200,000 students.
The schools are under the district education offices of Kuching, Padawan, Bau, Lundu, Samarahan, Simunjan, Serian, Sri Aman, Lubok Antu, Kanowit, Julau and Meradong. Schools outside the affected districts will continue operating as scheduled.
Sarawak Education director Omar Mahli said the decision followed continuous monitoring of Air Pollutant Index (API) readings during the school holidays as well as assessments and weather information from the Malaysian Meteorological Department.
“Based on our monitoring throughout the school holiday this week, the situation has clearly not changed much,” he said.
As a result, schools in the affected areas will switch to Home-Based Teaching and Learning (PdPR) throughout the temporary closure to ensure students can continue their lessons.
The Education Department said any changes to the closure arrangements would be communicated as conditions develop.
On Friday, Serian recorded API readings exceeding 500, while Kuching also moved into the hazardous category. Samarahan and Sri Aman recorded very unhealthy air quality.
Under API classification, readings of 0-50 are considered good, 51-100 moderate, 101-200 unhealthy, 201-300 very unhealthy and above 300 hazardous.
