KUCHING: A study carried out by the United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) indicates that Malaysia still needs 45 new Chinese primary schools.
According to Dong Zong’s ‘Build and Relocate Chinese Primary Schools Report’, six of the 45 new Chinese primary schools are proposed for Sarawak.
They are proposed to be in Kuching (1), Sibu (1), Bintulu (2) and Miri (2).
Other states that require new Chinese primary schools are Selangor/Kuala Lumpur (16), Penang (13), Johor (8) and Perak and Sabah (one each), according to an Oriental Daily News report dated Dec 17.
The Dong Zong’s report noted that two memorandums were submitted to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in 2011 and 2012 to highlight the need for 45 more Chinese primary schools.
However, the formal requests did not bring about any results because the Education Ministry had yet to grant any approval to build more Chinese primary schools.
The two memorandums were delivered to Putrajaya on Nov 14, 2011 and Aug 23, 2012 respectively.
The documents clearly stated that the mentioned six states in the country needed 45 more Chinese primary schools.
Dong Zong also observed that even though 1,600 Chinese primary schools were built throughout the country between 1970 and 2016, 49 schools of the same type and 133 Tamil schools were closed down over the same period.
From 1991 to 2010, between 89 per cent and 96 per cent of the total education allocations were granted to national type primary schools.
Dong Zong’s report further stressed that no percentage of education grants for the various types of primary schools had been stated under the 10th and 11th Malaysia Plan (2011-2020).
It also opined that the government had constructed more national type primary schools to meet the rising need, but overlooked the need for more Chinese primary schools.
During a press conference in Kajang last Saturday, chairman of Dong Zong Temenggong Datuk Vincent Lau said the memorandums called for more Chinese primary schools to be built, but the government had given little or no attention to their requests.
He regretted that the government had not even approved the construction of one such school since.
Lau expressed dismay that the government of the day had implemented policies based on political demand and reason.
The fact that more national type primary schools had been built went to show that the government was not serious about the requests from the Chinese community, he added.