Despite national-type Chinese secondary schools (SMJKC) not being given an allocation in the 2014 Budget, Deputy Education Minister Mary Yap says the government has not ‘closed its doors' to these schools.

Yap said the government would continue to pay salaries of the staff of the schools, while the schools could also apply for grants from the government.

NONEShe was responding to her predecessor Wee Ka Siong's (right) admonishment this morning for supposedly telling off people who questioned why SMJKCs were not given an allocation under the 2014 Budget.

Yap said the RM30 million that she distributed to 66 SMJKCs earlier this year, was not in the budget either.

"It might not be in the budget, but the important thing is that the money had come from the government...

"It has not been stated (in the 2014 Budget), but you see, like this one was not stated also in the 2013 Budget either.

"The government can use other ways and means to give (grants), and this was from the Prime Minister's Office," Yap said when met by reporters this evening.

She denied that the SMJKCs were being sidelined, and said they were being treated the same as other schools that teach the national curriculum.

Asked about Wee's remark that Yap appeared garang (fierce) when making her remarks yesterday, she laughed the matter off.

"Mary Yap is always ‘garang'. She is always a very strict disciplinarian. That is so petty," she retorted.

Additional reporting by Kow Gah Chie.

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