Two years ago, the former education minister announced that all government schools will abolish school fees. But the schools still collected money for various reasons.

But the reason SK Taman Hi-Tech in Kulim, Kedah is collecting money for is absurd. The school already collected fees in the beginning of year; I can't remember how much because they never issue receipts.

Now the school wants RM25 from every student. The breakdown is RM10 for examination papers, RM10 for ‘co-curriculum' and RM5 for ‘safety'.

The schools has 1,200 pupils therefor RM12,000 is to be collected for for examination papers? In the hypermarkets the best quality A4 paper is less than RM8/rim (450 pages).

For RM12,000, they are meaning to use 1,500 rims. Do you know how much is 1,500 rims? The school only has four exams per year. How papers are used per student? Does RM10 per student make sense?

The same goes to ‘co-curriculum' and ‘safety' fees. I never heard of other schools asking money for these reasons.

You may say the Parent-Teacher Association approved this request. Well, if technical matters are brought up, I can say this. The constitution of the PTA says that all proposed resolutions need to be published and sent to parents at least a few days before the event.

A majority of the parents didn't attend the PTA meeting because they didn't know these extra fees was supposed to be one of the proposals.

This school has a history of controversies. Last year, they collected RM10 from each student for a ‘digital name tag'. The reason given was that the teachers are too busy to take attendance, therefor pupils just have to digitally register just like going to office.

All parents paid up, no choice. But the project was never implemented. Last June, some students received the electronic badges, many did not. Now the Standard 6 students have already left the school.

Will they be re-funded? The questions are:

Who approved the project? Did the PTA approve it or not?

How was the contractor chosen? Was there a tender?

Were the accounta ever shown to anyone? Were the accounts ever audited?

Why were no receipts issued after the money was collected?