Grant allocations to build three Tamil schools

In a letter to Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, Selangor exco Xavier Jeyakumar asks for allocations to solve the problem of overcrowding.

SHAH ALAM: Selangor exco Dr Xavier Jeyakumar has asked Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to grant allocations to build three Tamil schools in the state.

In a letter to Muhyiddin, who is also deputy prime minister, dated Nov 1, Jeyakumar explained that several Tamil schools in Selangor were facing shortage of space due to the increasing number of pupils.

According to him, the state government identified three schools as suffering the most. These were SJK (Tamil) Batu Ampat, Kampung Jawa, Klang, SJK (Tamil) Simpang Lima (Dua), Klang and the Seafield Tamil school in Petaling Jaya.

Currently, the three schools do not have enough classrooms for its pupils.

The Simpang Lima school has more than 2,000 pupils while the Batu Ampat school has 1,400 pupils.

The parents of pupils in the Seafield school have requested the federal government to relocate the school to Desa Mentari, Bandar Sunway, since more than 5,000 Indians live there.

Jeyakumar said the state government awarded four acres of land to the Batu Ampat Tamil school, 2.74 acres and 1.5 acres land to Simpang Lima (Dua) and Seafield Tamil school respectively.

“The land allocation is part of the state government’s efforts to upgrade the infrastructure of Tamil schools in Selangor due to lack of classrooms as a result of the increase of pupils in many Tamil schools over the past few years,” he said.

Jeyakumar, who oversees Tamil schools in the state, penned the letter to Muhyiddin since the construction of schools fell under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

He added that the state government would continue to offer school sites to the federal government in several other locations to build more school buildings or additional buildings for classrooms.

Jeyakumar also said that the federal government should channel funds to all the schools immediately so that new buildings could be built as soon as possible.