The chairperson of the country's oldest Chinese independent school said today that the upcoming meeting of the full board of governors has no intention of sacking the principal.

Lee Yam Hooi, the chairperson of the Confucian Private Secondary School, or Zunkong, asserted that the meeting is called to seek a solution for the rift between some of the governors and the staff.

"I have no plan to fire the principal via the show-cause letter. We have been misunderstood," he stressed.

For the past few months, principal Goh Kean Seng and teachers have complained about the year-long interference in the school's administration by the board's deputy chairperson Liew Kon Seng, and its adviser Kok Kim Tong.

The tension between both parties turned sour after the principal was issued a show-cause letter by Lee last week asking him to explain why he should not be terminated.

Pressure

The letter, dated Sept 27, accused that Goh's statements to Chinese dailies Sin Chew Jit Poh and China Press in July were in violation of his contract.

However, Lee today explained the show-cause letter was only meant to put pressure on the principal so that the latter would submit his report on the problems between the governors and the staff as soon as possible to him.

According to Lee, the executive committee had decided on Sept 11 that the reports from the feuding parties must be completed and handed to him by the end of last month.

Chow Siew Hon, the vice-chairperson of the board, said Lee had issued the show-cause letter without getting prior consent from the board's 14-member executive committee as well as the whole 45-member board.

Chow, who is head of the Safeguard Confucian School Action Committee - an ad-hoc committee formed to support the school's embattled principal consisting of governors, teachers, parents and a number of Chinese organisations - has called on Lee and a number of the governors to resign.

However, Lee claimed that Chow's accusation was an attempt to "take over his place".

"The sponsors and the alumni know how much I have contributed to the school over past 12 years. It is not for Chow, who has come here a few years ago, to order us to step down," he said.

Political links

Lee also insisted that the governors, Liew and Kok, did not have to apologise to the staff. Both of them were alleged to have insulted the staff during a meeting.

"Even if the governors were wrong in their conduct, the teachers should not have shown their anger at the other governors," he said.

He added that any misbehaviour by the governors should have been settled at the board of governors' level and not in the media.

Furthermore, he pointed out, the principal has not adhered to the agreement made with the governors, in which both parties would not talk to the media until this Sunday.

Lee also refuted any "political factors" behind the rift, saying that all the governors are philanthropists in contributing their monies to the Chinese schools.

"Any friendship between the governors and some politicians are their private matters. We have no right to cut off their friendship," said the secretary Ang Chia Liong.

Over the past few months, speculation was rife that the crisis of Zunkong might have links to certain governors who are close to MCA in its bid to take over the school as a step to control Dong Jiao Zong, the Chinese education movement.

Founded in 1906, Zunkong is the oldest Chinese independent school in Malaysia and considered the 'home' of Chinese educationists.

One of its prominent leader, Lim Lian Geok, whose citizenship has been stripped off, launched the Chinese education movement while he was in Zunkong.