Advocates of Sekolah Agama Rakyat (people's religious school or SAR) urged prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to reinstate the government's financial assistance to all the religious schools.

Save the SAR movement, better known as Gegar, called on Abdullah to take a bold step to revise the decision made by his predecessor Dr Mahathir Mohamad to scrap the financial aid two years ago.

Its secretary Ahmad Tarmizi Sulaiman said Abdullah should not hesitate to reverse the earlier decision as he would be helping more than 400,000 students to gain educational benefits from the financial help.

"Although he has not made a clear stand on the issue, we believe that he can make positive development. After he took over, the accusations against SAR schools, its students and teachers has been quiet. We welcome this but he should not just stop at this point," he said when contacted.

The privately owned religious school became a national controversy after government stopped its annual grant on annual grants ranging from RM60 to RM150 per student in Oct 2002.

The hardline measure followed former premier Mahathir's claim that students in SAR schools, mostly linked to PAS, were being taught to hate the government.

Recently in parliament, the education ministry announced that it has no intention to reinstate the grant.

Increase in students

Ahmad Tarmizi also said that the financial support from the government is much need since the student-intake for all SAR schools is expected to increase next year.

"We expected about 20-30 percent increase next year because most parents still believe that SAR schools are better than the national-type schools as far as religious studies are concerned ."

He said the demand for the school has slowly increased in the past year soon after the hate-campaign against SAR schools stopped.

"Maybe since the current prime minister keeps mum on the issue, his subordinates dare not say anything. This is quite a relief for us. Last year was very bad for us as apart from financial problems we also had to fend off false accusations by ministers and politicians."

He said Gegar also hopes to meet Abdullah to submit the memorandum on SAR but to date all efforts proved futile.

"We had written a letter to the PM seeking time to send him our memorandum on SAR but we were instead told to post the memorandum. We didn't do it because there's no point as we cannot be assured that he will study it. If we were to hand it personally to him at least we can get his personal assurance that he would look into the matter."

Closed down

Perak SAR Association president Wan Ahmad Tarmazi Abdul Aziz said the Abdullah should stop the bias treatment SAR is facing the past couple of years.

"While financial aid for Chinese, Tamil and missionary schools continue, SAR continues to be victimised. It's time that the PM put a stop to this."

He said that if the matter is not dealt with properly, more schools would be forced to close down.

"In Perak alone, five secondary schools have to cease its operations. Right now the remaining 32 depend only on the state religious department - Baitumal- where only RM12 to RM50 are given to each student," he said.

In Kedah, he said, four schools had to be closed, 12 had been taken over by the state while 30 others depend on state religious department and donation from the public.

He said although the issue on SAR has not been highlighted in the past months, it does not mean that the problems had been settled.

Make report public

In a related issue, Ahmad Tarmizi also urged the premier to make public the report prepared by the special committee on religious studies, as soon as possible.

"We would like to know if the proposals we made to the committee had been accepted or not. It's not good to leave the issue in the state of limbo."

When contacted the committee chairperson Murad Mohd Nor told malaysiakini that the final report was submitted to Abdullah about a month ago.

"However, we have yet to get any response. They also have not indicated when they would want to make it public. We just have to wait," he said when contacted.

The special committee was instructed by the King to include SAR schools in their study after appeals are made to the Malay Rulers.