Kota Kinabalu: Sabah’s schools should not have to wait until the Air Pollutant Index (API) hits 200 before closing during haze, with Likas assemblyman Tham Yun Fook proposing API 150 as a safer threshold.
He said the Education Ministry must look beyond national cut-off points and account for Sabah’s different local conditions, particularly in rural and remote communities where students face long journeys to school and limited access to online learning.
“The health and safety of students and teachers must not be compromised simply to avoid losing school days,” he said in a statement.
Under the guidelines cited by Tham, outdoor activities are suspended when the API exceeds 100, while schools close when it exceeds 200.
He warned that readings below the closure threshold did not necessarily guarantee safe conditions, especially for students with asthma or other respiratory problems.
A former senior education officer, he urged the ministry to consider local air quality, exposure duration and Health Ministry advice when deciding whether schools should remain open.
Tham also questioned why online teaching and learning (PdP) was not being considered when haze threatened students’ health, given the ministry’s stated preparedness to implement it.
However, he stressed that online lessons alone would not solve the problem in Sabah, where some rural and remote pupils may lack suitable devices or reliable internet access. Alternative arrangements must be provided to prevent them from falling behind.
He also warned that leaving attendance decisions to parents could put families in a difficult position if children kept home over health concerns and missed lessons that continued in school.
Tham called for clear guidelines on who could order school closures, how frequently API readings were reviewed and what action would be taken when conditions around a school differed from readings at the nearest monitoring station.
He said Sabah’s urban, rural and remote schools required a flexible response that considered local air quality, students’ travelling distances and transport arrangements.
While acknowledging the importance of the National Haze Action Plan, Tham said its implementation should not be so rigid that it overlooked local realities.
He urged the ministry to prioritise students’ health, provide clear instructions for parents and ensure practical learning alternatives were available when schools closed.
Lost school days could be made up, he said, but students’ health must not be put at risk to preserve the academic calendar.
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