An education group fighting to preserve the people's religious schools (SAR or Sekolah Agama Rakyat) will file a suit next week against the government for allegedly trying to shut down the schools.

Save the SAR Committee chairperson (Gegar) Mohd Azmi Abd Hamid said there were strong grounds to conclude that the government was trying to "choke SAR to death" by depriving the schools of monetary assistance and introducing new, strict rulings o­n them.

"We regret that the SAR issue could not be resolved within the education channel or the Malay rulers.

"Instead the government took a position right from the beginning using political rationale to justify its actions and to implement the decision prior to any consultation with the rulers," he said.

Obvious agenda

He said the government's agenda was obvious in an o­n-going smear campaign against SAR through the local media.

Several lawyers had volunteered to study the Education Act 1996 and the Federal Constitution before preparing an affidavit for the committee, he added.

When asked, he said the legal action against the government did not mean that the committee was disrespecting the Conference of Rulers which had met last Thursday to discuss the SAR issue.

"This legal action is just another venue for us to save the SARs. It is not in anyway disrespectful to the rulers, we are still trying to seek clarification from them regarding their stand o­n the issue," Mohd Azmi said when contacted.

Last Thursday, the Keeper of the Rulers' Seal Engku Ibrahim Ngah issued a statement after the 196th meeting of the Conference of Rulers declaring that the rulers had endorsed solutions forwarded by the government o­n Islamic education.

The rulers were also said to have given their assurances that SARs "will not be closed as long as they perform their functions well".

Confused by statement

Several groups including Gegar had earlier submitted their memorandum to the rulers, hoping for royal intervention in what the groups claimed as an attempt by the government to close down SARs.

Mohd Azmi said he was confused by the statement made by the Keeper of the Rulers' Seal.

"What did 'perform their functions well' mean? How could the schools perform well when the government has already disrupted their operations?" he asked.

He said he will try to seek clarification from several rulers including Kedah Sultan Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah whom he said "showed positive response to our plight at the previous meetings".

Privately-run SAR became a national controversy when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced last October to stop an annual grant ranging from RM60 to RM150 per student to these schools.

There are 260 SARs nationwide with 66,000 students in secondary level and 8,000 pupils in primary. Most of them relied o­n the grant for maintenance, teachers' salaries and other expenses.

Mahathir had claimed that students in these schools were taught to hate the government by the opposition, referring to PAS.

The prime minister also said he wanted to overhaul the education system before his retirement in October to, among others, encourage Muslims to embrace both religious and worldly pursuits.

The government has made an offer for SAR teachers and students to join national schools since early this year.

Last week, Education Minister Musa Mohamad told Parliament that 3,000 SAR teachers and 15,000 students had applied to switch to national schools under the purview of the ministry.

PAS to act

In a related matter, Dr Hatta Ramli, secretary to Opposition Leader Abdul Hadi Awang, said the latter may try to seek a meeting first with Sultan Terengganu Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin regarding the SAR issue.

He added Abdul Hadi may subsequently do the same with other rulers in his capacity as the acting president of PAS.

"We are not clear about what solutions were endorsed by the Conference of Rulers pertaining to Islamic education," said Hatta.

Yesterday, Abdul Hadi said he needed more clarification from the rulers o­n newspaper reports that they had approved the government's actions o­n SARs.

Before their meeting last week, the rulers were briefed by Education Minister Musa Mohamad o­n SAR and the latest developments at a separate session, at which they were told that former education director-general Murad Mohd Noor was chairing a special committee to study the revamp of Islamic education in the country.