The Education Ministry and the state department have been urged to stop threatening the students of the embattled Seaport Tamil school with expulsion if they refuse to relocate.

On Wednesday Selangor Education Director Mahmud Karim was reported warning the group of students refusing to relocate from Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil (SJKT) Seaport in Petaling Jaya to a new school 4km away that they will be expelled.

"This statement sounds like a threat.

"I hope the state education department stops making such statements and tries to work out a good solution," said Kannan Ramasamy, secretary of the Save Our School SJKT Sepaort Movement (SOSS) today.

He said SJKC Damansara had faced a similar situation in the past but the students were not threatened with expulsion.

That school, he said, was allowed to operate for another eight years.

The old Seaport school building currently sits on the Selangor Development Authority (PKNS),landwhich it is taking back .

 

However, state secretariat representative, NM Rajan, had said that the state, which controls PKNS, had already agreed in principle to gazette the original site in favour of the school.

Meanwhile, Kannan said the Menteri Besar’s chief private secretary Mohamad Yasid Bidin has already written a letter to Petaling District officer Misri Idris,with a copy sent to the school’s Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) chairperson Kumar Vanathan.

The letter urges Misri to consider the PTA’s application to gazette the land.

“We see this as a very positive development,” said Kannan, who is also the national president of the Tamil School Boards Association.

He also said that he will bring the school’s plight to the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) through a memorandum, since the Ministers and Deputy Ministers of Education have not shown any inclination on holding official discussions on the matter.

“They frequently twist the issue as an issue of transportation, but our demands are actually to preserve the existing school at this original site near the Seaport community,” he said.