A memorandum to the education ministry today expressed concern that over 700 pupils in Puchong will fail to secure a place in Chinese vernacular schools next year due to schools closure.

DAP's education bureau today met up with deputy education minister Aziz Shamsuddin (right) to discuss the acute shortage of Chinese language primary schools in major cities, despite increasing demand stemming from a growing urban ethnic Chinese population.

Media reports on Sunday said that parents of Puchong students are instead forced to send their children to national-type schools, some as far as 20 km from their residences.

DAP national publicity secretary Ronnie Liu said the situation is neither desirable nor sustainable.

"There has been a dramatic increase in the number of students in Chinese primary schools...in the last 33 years, this has increased by more than 200,000," he said in the memorandum.

At the same time, he said, 62 mother tongue schools were closed for various reasons.

"Unfortunately, the government is not taking enough concern of this trend," said Liu.

More students now

According to Liu, the number of students in Chinese language primary schools grew from 440,000 to 620,000 in the last three decades - signalling a 30 per cent jump.

While the number of national type primary schools have steadily increased, vernacular Tamil and Chinese language primary schools have dropped to 526 and 1284 respectively, he said.

"The government, especially the ministry of education, should explain to the people why such unfair and unprofessional practices continue to happen," said Liu.

"Despite the fact that most urban areas show an increasing ethnic Chinese population, the government is still not providing sufficient Chinese vernacular primary schools to meet the needs of students."

When contacted, Liu said Aziz had informed him that the ministry was unable to discuss the schools issue with the delegation this morning, but promised to explore the matter after the end of the Dewan Negara sitting on Nov 20.

"Aziz conceded that the government has not done enough on the subject, but warned that we should make reasonable demands so that a 'lose-lose' situation between us and the government would not occur," he added.