“Education is the most important bridge to the future.”
– Tun Abdul Rahman Ya’kub, 4th Chief Minister of Sarawak
CIKGU Aminah sat in the staffroom last Tuesday at 7:00 pm, the blue light of her laptop reflecting off a face lined with eighteen years of service. Outside, the heavy Sarawakian rain beat against the louvres. Thirty Form 4 students in a rural school in Sri Aman were waiting for tomorrow. Three different ability levels in one room. One lesson plan left to finish.
She knew what good teaching looked like: differentiated content, scaffolded support, real-world relevance. She had learned the theory back when Putrajaya still pretended to prioritise pedagogy over exam statistics. But in the trenches of rural education, “knowing” and “doing” are separated by one brutal, unyielding constraint: time.
By 8:30 pm, she surrendered. She printed the same “one-size-fits-all” worksheet she had used for a decade. She went home feeling like she’d failed her students again. The journey back took an hour – navigating dangerous timber roads with no streetlights, wondering if her ageing Proton would survive another rainy season.
The next morning, a younger colleague showed her something. “Just talk to it,” he said. She typed: “Create a Form 4 Science worksheet on photosynthesis with three difficulty levels: remedial, intermediate, and advanced.”
Fifteen seconds later, it appeared. All three versions. Perfect. She stared at the screen. Then she asked the question I need you to sit with: “Where the bloody hell was this ten years ago?”
The Billion-Ringgit Betrayal
The Malaysian Government once announced 1BestariNet – RM4.05 billion to “revolutionise” education. Every school would get high-speed internet. Every student a device. You remember how that went.
Tablets that barely worked. Internet that dropped the moment you left the city – if it reached rural Sarawak at all. Platforms so clunky they felt designed by people who hadn’t seen a classroom since the 1990s. And when it failed, teachers were blamed for not “embracing digital transformation”.
Rural schools got the worst of it. Schools accessible only by river never saw the promised utilities. By 2019, the Auditor-General reported the project had “failed to achieve its objectives”. RM4 billion. Gone. And what did Sarawak’s teachers get? Burnout, frustration, and the label “technologically resistant”.
Now, it is 2026. Google’s Gemini is freely available. You talk to it in plain English. It works. Immediately. No district office approval. No login errors. No three-day training modules in a hotel in Kuching.
I am celebrating that teachers finally have relief. But I am furious that it took a Silicon Valley corporation to provide what our own education system should have built a decade ago.
The Sarawak Teacher’s “Time-Back” Guide
If you are reading this from a staffroom in Kapit, Bintulu, or Sri Aman, I don’t want you to wait for a Ministry circular. I want you to take your two hours back today.
The secret isn’t “learning AI”; it’s knowing how to ask. Here is how you bypass the administrative weight that’s been crushing you:
For Differentiated Content: “Create a reading passage about Sarawak’s rainforest biodiversity for Form 2. Provide three versions: one for struggling readers using simple sentences, one standard version, and one advanced version with complex vocabulary.”
For Cultural Relevance: “Generate a Form 3 Maths quiz on ratios using examples related to harvesting pepper or dividing kuih muih at a longhouse gathering.”
For Administrative Relief: “Draft a polite but firm email to parents explaining the importance of attendance for the upcoming SPM trials, translated into both English and Bahasa Malaysia.”
For Lesson Scaffolding: “Explain the concept of ‘Gravity’ using an analogy that a 13-year-old living in a rural village would understand.”
Fifteen minutes of reviewing and printing replaces three hours of formatting and struggling. This is wu wei – effortless action. Use the machine to handle the mechanical so you can focus on the human.
The Dependency Question
Why are we applauding Google for solving a problem our Ministry created? Sarawak’s teachers aren’t resistant; they are exhausted. Data shows 94% have smart devices, but proficiency lags – not from a lack of intelligence, but from “digital trauma”. They were given broken tools and told to “upskill” on their own time and dime.
And here is the danger: Google isn’t a charity. It’s free now, but how long until it’s essential? How long until the Ministry – the same one that wasted RM4 billion – mandates it, only for the subscription fees to become another burden for rural schools?
The real revolution isn’t a chatbot that speaks English. It’s a system that values teachers enough to give them reasonable class sizes, adequate preparation time, and housing incentives that make rural postings a reward rather than a punishment.
The Stoic Practice
Marcus Aurelius said, “You have power over your mind – not outside events.” Use the tool. Do not worship it. Do not let it become another metric for the district office to track your “performance”.
Gemini can draft a lesson plan, but it cannot see that Ahmad is struggling because his father is sick. It cannot hear the silence in a room when a student is too embarrassed to ask for help. It cannot build the rapport that prevents a student from dropping out.
AI handles the mechanics. You remain the heart.
What Now?
Try it. Just once this week, ask Gemini for help with your most dreaded task. The quiz. The email. The differentiated worksheet. Keep what works; ignore what doesn’t.
But remember: the moment this becomes one more way for the administration to make you feel inadequate, push back.
Teaching isn’t about mastering tools; it’s about helping young minds grow. You were doing that long before Silicon Valley arrived.
The system failed you. Not the other way around. The relief is welcome, but the “rescue narrative” is rubbish. You didn’t need saving; you needed support. There is a difference.
And that difference is what we should be demanding next. Good luck!
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune.
