State scholarships proposed as a policy instrument to strengthen ethnic language studies in Sabah universities — Ewon
By Mohd Khairy Abdullah
PENAMPANG, Sabah (Malaysia), 22 Feb 2026 — In the context of preserving linguistic diversity and sustaining Sabah’s indigenous languages within the formal education ecosystem, the Sabah State Government has been urged to introduce targeted Sabah State Scholarships (BKNS) for ethnic language studies at the university level as a policy mechanism to systematically build the capacity of mother-tongue language teachers, said Deputy Chief Minister III Datuk Ewon Benedick.
He emphasised that scholarship incentives for students pursuing ethnic language studies could increase youth participation in Sabah’s indigenous linguistics and ensure continuity in the teaching of mother-tongue languages within the school system.
Currently, the Kadazandusun language has been institutionalised within the national curriculum in primary and secondary schools in Sabah. Meanwhile, efforts to introduce four additional ethnic languages — Kadazan Tangaa, Murut Timogun, Dusun Lotud and Tatana — are being refined within the education policy framework.
“I will submit to the Chief Minister and the state cabinet the need to support the teaching of these ethnic languages through BKNS scholarships for students pursuing studies at universities such as Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris and Universiti Malaysia Sabah that offer these programmes.
“This can encourage more students to choose this field and subsequently become teachers of ethnic language subjects in schools,” he told the media after officiating the International Mother Language Day celebration organised by the Kadazandusun Language Foundation at Dewan Huguan Siou, Kampung Tuavon.
At the event, he also launched the Kadazan–Malay–English Webonary, a digital repository comprising 36,673 Kadazan entries and 29,387 Malay entries, reflecting a significant scale of lexicographic documentation for Sabah’s indigenous languages.
As institutional support for mother-tongue language empowerment, he approved an allocation of RM100,000 from his Penampang parliamentary constituency funds and corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds of Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park to support language development initiatives by the Kadazandusun Language Foundation.
He also agreed to channel RM50,000 to the Sabah Ethnic Language Association to accelerate the development of pedagogical materials for the four ethnic languages proposed for introduction into the school curriculum.
The celebration also featured the presentation of the Tan Sri Bernard Dompok Literary Award to winners of the Kadazandusun novel competition organised by the Kadazandusun Language Foundation, as part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the corpus of Sabah ethnic language literature within contemporary discourse.
