news feature

When police barred some 300 supporters of a Subang Jaya/USJ Chinese education lobby group from entering the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur last Wednesday, they inadvertently highlighted the split between the area's state assemblyperson and residents who comprise the lobby group.

The issues that would have been discussed that night would have been the fate of SJK(C) Chee Wen - a Chinese primary school serving the USJ population - and the USJ 15 vision school, which is expected to start enrolment next month.

Central to the dispute is SJK(C) Chee Wen which, two years after its relocation from Batang Berjuntai, has remained homeless and is operating from five borrowed rooms in another school, SK SS17 in Subang Jaya.

MCA state assemblyperson Lee Hwa Beng, who is also the chairperson of Chee Wen's board of governors, is responsible for delivering a complete building for the school.

But for several months now, Lee has been at the receiving end of the residents' grouses as he had failed to fulfil his electoral promise to build the school last year.

As one parent put it, "We feel cheated."

Residents take action

Deciding to take matters into their own hands, the residents and parents set up a working committee for the development of Chinese schools in Subang Jaya and USJ, operating under the guidance of the influential national Chinese education lobby group Dong Zong.

Led by chairperson Gan Wah Lien, the committee has taken several steps to bring attention to the problem of Chinese school shortage in the residential area.

On Dec 28, a memorandum detailing the grievances of the residents was sent in for the attention of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Several days later, a similar memorandum was handed in to Education Minister Musa Mohamad.

At the time of submission, the memoranda were supported by over 13,800 Subang Jaya and USJ residents who signed the petition.

Representatives of the committee also joined other Chinese lobby groups to highlight their cause at Indera Kayangan in Perlis, in the run-up to the by-election.

Angered by their perceived 'interference', Lee had dismissed the group as having no credibility, deeming them as representing opposition interests.

According to Lee, the government had not allotted any funding to the schools listed under the Eighth Malaysia Plan due to recent 'economic difficulties', an excuse dismissed by Gan.

"How can they tell us that there is no money for the school when they can afford to build the large USJ 15 vision school complex within 10 months?" asked Gan.

'Fully-aided' status

However, at a meeting on Jan 9, Deputy Education Minister Hon Choon Kim offered the school board a grant of RM500,000, but on the condition that the Chee Wen would be temporarily removed from its listing as a 'fully-aided' school under the Eighth Malaysia Plan.

In an unexpected turn, the parents-teachers association of the school on Jan 14 wrote a memorandum supported by more than 200 parents to Hon rejecting the condition that came with his offer of the partial grant.

Their rationale, explained the PTA, was that since Chee Wen has been granted a 'fully-aided' status, funding for the school should come from government coffers and not public pockets.

"There is no guarantee that Chee Wen will be relisted as 'fully-aided' later," said PTA deputy chairperson Yip Kim Yin, adding that this would mean that the public would have to pick up the RM9 million tab for the construction of the whole school.

"We are only given partial help for the first block, what about the second and third block?" questioned Yip.

However, when asked, Lee implied that Chee Wen is 'fully-aided' in name but not in reality.

According to Lee, when he applied for the relocation of Chee Wen in 1999, he had agreed to undertake the responsibility to acquire land and funding for the school from the public.

"So the grant that had been offered to us is an additional bonus," he added.

Lee said he will meet with parents of Chee Wen's students to explain the implications of not accepting the grant offered by the Education Ministry.

"Who will be held responsible then if the school building is not ready by 2003?" he asked.

Yet a parent told malaysiakini that parents may be willing to wait longer should there be assurances that funding would be forthcoming for the entire school.

"We want a long-term solution, not a short-term one," said the parent who declined to be named.

Convert vision school

Meanwhile, Gan had also been leading the call for the conversion of the almost completed USJ 15 vision school into a Chinese school.

According to Gan, the request is a valid one as there is a pressing shortage of Chinese schools in the area but not national schools.

To illustrate, Gan said although town-planning rules state that at least one school has to be available for every 6,250 residents, no vernacular schools have been built to serve the 100,000 Chinese Malaysians in USJ.

"The government had shown that what we are asking is possible as in the case in Johor Jaya, Johor, where a vision school was successful converted," said Gan.

Gan added that this request echoes the suggestion made by Lee himself in a May 2001 interview with Chinese daily Nanyang Siang Pau in which Lee called on the government to allow for the conversion of the entire vision school.

Gan said that Chinese education groups had been fully supportive of Lee's earlier position especially since much remained unclear about the vision school concept.

"[If our request is met], we will be able to accommodate many more students who could not gain entry into Chinese schools within USJ," said Gan in reference to the 800 rejected students this year and another 4,000 currently attending schools outside the area.

In the meantime, the residents concerned will just have to remain hopeful that their children will soon be able to attend a school that incorporates mother-tongue education in the syllabus, and one that is much closer to home at that.