The RM4 million special allocation for seven Chinese primary schools and one Chinese-majority secondary school is solely to help their relocation exercise and not part of their annual allocation, said an MCA official today.

The party's education bureau secretary Lee Sing Chooi clarified that the special allocation announced yesterday will not affect the annual monetary aid received by the schools from the government.

"The RM500,000 (for each school) is solely for the purpose to reduce their cost of relocation," he said when contacted.

Yesterday, MCA president Ong Ka Ting said the government will disburse the money, which he described as 'ang pow', to help expedite the relocation of the eight schools located in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Perak, Pahang and Johor.

He also denied that the move was an attempt to fish Chinese votes as the general election is around the corner.

"The MCA is sincere in assisting the Chinese schools and we hope under our monitoring, the relocations could be completed as soon as possible," he was quoted as saying in a Chinese daily.

He said the Education Ministry had approved the applications of the eight school to relocate between 1999 to 2000 but the relocation was delayed due to financial constraints.

Ong added that he submitted the application for a special allocation two months ago and received eight cheques from the Prime Minister's Department on Wednesday.

The MCA president also praised Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for his "open-mindedness" and swift response to the request.

Under-enrolled schools

In a related development, Lee said MCA was also handling the relocation of several under-enrolled Chinese schools.

However, he stressed that a lot of work needs to be done such as locating a suitable replacement area before the government can approve the relocation application.

Early this month, the government said it will close down under-enrolled schools but this caused an uproar among vernacular education campaigners who claimed that the move would only increase the shortage of vernacular schools in the country.

Following this, the government promised to relocate the schools instead of closing them down.

According to MCA, there are currently 15 Chinese schools in the country with less than 10 students.