Education Ministry may get into the Malaysian Book of Records in building a school from Cabinet approval within eight months but can it give one good reason why the 70-year-old  original SJK ©  Damansara school cannot continue be used as a school

(Penang, Wednesday): The Education Ministry should be congratulated for planning to build a brand-new Chinese primary school within eight months, which may not get it into the Guinness Book of Records but should find it a place in the Malaysian Book of Records.

However, can the Education Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad or the Deputy Education Minister, Datuk Hon Choon Kim, give one good reason why the 70-year-old original SJK © Damansara school in Section 17, Petaling Jaya cannot continue to be used as a school and had to be converted into a community hall - when the problem is not too few community halls, but too few Chinese primary schools to meet the needs of parents of all races in Petaling Jaya and the Klang Valley who want to send their children to Chinese primary schools.

When Hon visited the new school site at Tropicana, Petaling Jaya yesterday, he announced that the new school would be completed in eight months and ready for use beginning January next year - but he was unable to answer two important questions:
 

• Why the indecent haste to relocate the 1,400 students to SJK ©  Puay Chai (II) temporarily for one school year when the new school at Tropicana would be ready for use next January; and
• The suitability of the new site for school purposes, because of the high tension electrical cables, ravines, nearby reservoir and the traffic congestion which would get worse with more and more housing projects to be completed in the locality.

In refusing to answer these questions, claiming that they are technical questions that he know nothing about, Hon is “playing politics” and acting in a most irresponsible manner.

 (7/2/2001)