Who's really marginalizing whom?

This news item in the Star caught my attention today. It was reported that "An island school with 26 pupils had a 100% failure in the UPSR examination" and that this school was located in Kota Belud, in the state of Sabah.

More worrying was the following statement which gives us an indication of the status of education standards in the state of Sabah:

"Sabah education director Normah Gagoh had disclosed the school’s failure when announcing the UPSR results which saw an overall poor performance where, of the 44,432 pupils who sat for the examination, only 20,727 passed."

That's a deplorable 47% passing rate!

Here's the response of the MP of Kota Belud and former Chief Minister of Sabah to this:

“The results are shocking. We have to look at it seriously,” former chief minister and Kota Belud MP Datuk Mohd Salleh Tun Said said.

He said the possible reasons for the failure could be poverty, lack of infrastructure including power supply on the island and the lack of parents' involvement in the children's education.

If the former CM of Sabah didn't or couldn't raise the standards of education in his own constituency, not to mention the whole state of Sabah, can we say that his actions led to the marginalization of Sabahans, especially the Bumiputeras in the rural areas?

Tony has eloquently blogged about this in his personal blog and he shows that Sabah has the highest poverty incidence rate in the whole of Malaysia.

I wonder which party holds the Chief Ministership of Sabah? I wonder who's really marginalizing whom while fattening their own pockets?