MUAR, Oct 13 --  The allocation received by the Department of Environment (DoE) in the 2020 Budget is expected to assist the agency in carrying out enforcement activities more effectively next year.

Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC) Minister Yeo Bee Yin said with the allocation, her ministry would be able to help acquire the necessary equipment and machinery needed to address pollution in the country.

 Besides that, the provision will also enable the DOE to carry out necessary studies related to pollution.

“It will be put to good use so that we can increase DoE enforcement next year.

“... because every year, we want to double the DOE enforcement series,” she told reporters after observing the ESTECC Education Programme at Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC) Pei Chai here, today.

She was commenting on the 2020 Budget tabled on Friday which allocated RM20 million to MESTECC  to carry out Cradle Fund programmes to train and give grants to high-impact technology entrepreneurs.

Apart from that, the government has allocated RM30 million to DoE and the Chemistry Department to empower both the departments in dealing with pollution issues.

With regard to the ESTECC Education Programme, Yeo said they had begun to see the positive impact among students on the importance of studying Science, Technology and  Mathematics (STEM) subjects, since the programme was launched in January this year.

This is because students  now understand that science is fun.

“It's very important that they should not be afraid of science and technology. Hence, for next year, we'll see how we can expand or improve the programme to make it more interesting.

“... as well as how we can inject more subjects (teaching) new technologies such as robotics, drones and others,” she said.

At the same time, the ministry intends to extend its strategic partners to implement the National Science Week programme to other departments and agencies, in order to complement MESTECC's efforts to reach out to more students and spark their interest in STEM education

“Our goal is to involve as many as one million students nationwide by the end of this year into the ESTECC programme and one million more students through the National Science Week programme.

“So we will work with various agencies, even from different ministries so that the objective to engage students in the subject is achieved,” she said.

As of yesterday, 581,910 students from 1,701 schools were already directly involved in the ESTECC programme with 296,699 of them being rural students from 776 schools.

-- BERNAMA