The SJK(C) Chee Wen in Subang Jaya will get a block of 16 classrooms estimated at RM1.5 million, of which RM500,000 are from government allocation and the balance through fund raising.

Hence, government's contribution to Chinese primary schools is no longer dollar-for-dollar, but lima-kupang -for- satu-ringgit . This is a dangerous precedent that must not go unnoticed.

If we argue the numbers from the perspective of percent-point, for a project costing RM1.5 million, the government is now only responsible for some 33 percent of the building cost if it were to dispense RM500,000 and the balance to be borne by rate-payers.

There is a long-term implication for taking this dangerous route in Chinese education. Should the authorities adopt this precedent as the yardstick for the development of Chinese primary schools in the future, then none others but MCA must be held responsible for causing perpetual injury to Chinese primary education in Malaysia.

There are a few reasons behind this if we take Chee Wen as a test case.

As if adding salt to injury, the parents-teachers association members were told by Deputy Education Minister Hon Choon Kim that SJK(C) Chee Wen may have to be removed from the original list of Chinese primary schools to be funded under the Eighth Malaysia Plan.

However, neither Hon nor his MCA compatriots could commit themselves to ensure Chee Wen will be listed again under the Eighth Malaysia Plan, to qualify the school for a full-fledged budget after the interim disbursement of RM500,000.

Hence, the parents are of the opinion that there are no logical reasons for them to trade the building of an entire school of 26 classes costing some RM9 million for a block of 16 classrooms with a meager allocation of RM500,000. Some parents remarked that the amount was not even sufficient to buy a corner link-house in Subang Jaya!

Thirdly, MCA has failed to uphold the convention of the 'sekolah bantuan penuh' (fully-aided schools) to benefit the Chinese primary schools. Under this provision, all Chinese primary schools, as in the case for schools of all other media of instruction, shall enjoy the government's full financing for the infrastructure and operation costs, including the teachers and non-teaching staff's salary.

It is only schools classified under 'sekolah bantuan modal' (partially-aided schools) that will only be supported with the government's aids for the staff's remuneration. Normally, schools under the 'bantuan modal' (partially-aided) category are those that retain the rights to the land on which the schools stand.

SJK(C) Chee Wen has been a fully-aided school before it was relocated from Batang Berjuntai to Subang Jaya in 1999.

Hence, it is puzzling for Lee Hwa Beng (MCA), chairman of the board of governors for Chee Wen, to announce that public fund-raising and donation should be solicited for a school that maintains its 'fully-aided' status even after its relocation

Incidentally, Lee has also exploited the building of Chee Wen as a vote-getter during the1999 general election. During the campaign, he distributed thousands of leaflets pledging his promise to deliver SJK(C) Chee Wen by 2001. These leaflets have now been unearthed, mass-produced and widely circulated among the local community to testify on a political post-dated cheque that bounced!

Now that it is 2002, it is cast in stone that Chee Wen did not materialise by 2001 as promised. The parents are very disturbed by the fact that the school buildings are nowhere in sight; only the forlorn signboard hastily erected before the 1999 general election stands.

It is now public knowledge that the demand-supply situation for Chinese primary education in Subang Jaya has reached a critical point. The two Chinese schools in Subang Jaya namely SJK(C) Lick Hung and SJK(C) Chee Wen, which now squats on five borrowed classrooms could only accommodate 600 and 150 year one pupils respectively every year.

An estimated 700 pupils were being dispatched to Chinese schools ranging from 6km to 25km away. These schools located out of Subang Jaya, especially those in Sungai Way and Puchong, are facing severe congestion problem due to the rapid demographic explosion around the areas.

Meanwhile, we now hear that many Chinese schools in the rural areas are on the brink of closing down due to a lack of students, while the urban areas are facing an acute shortage of Chinese schools.

This dichotomy indicates that planners of school development at the Education Ministry, and the education bureau at MCA, which controls the education portfolio in the government, did not take into consideration the effect of rural-urban transmigration, and the drastic changes in the demographic composition in the country. In other words, these people have been sleeping all the while.

While much more could be deliberated on the Chinese school issue, the long and short of it is that, the Chinese community and the leaders they traditionally depend on do not have long-term strategies but rely on short-term quick fixes to tackle even the issue of basic education in the country.

Nevertheless, the consequences of these mistakes certainly cannot be quantified by the meager handouts that people like Hon thought could douse the pit fires, where education is concerned.