Some time ago, when the Selangor government announced ceremony to award RM4 million to Tamil schools in Selangor, quite a number of schools stayed away because they were verbally warned by Education department. I didn’t see any comments from MIC to protest against the warning. True, the state government could have been more discreet and avoided the controversy, but I guess they wanted to milk as much publicity and good name as possible.

Today, SJKC Sin Ming, which is quite near my house, invited Selangor MB Khalid to officiate the new four-storey building. Worse still, they also invited Anwar Ibrahim as guest of honor! Others invited included Kuala Langat MP Abdullah Sani Hamid, Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo and three Selangor exco members – Teresa Kok, Ronnie Liu and Yaakob Sapari. One can only imagine the anger in Education Department 🙂

Malaysiakini reports that, in response, the education authorities have barred the school’s headmaster and teachers from the event, according to board chairperson Chai Yoon Peng.

The chairperson also said that invitations were sent to key federal and state reps from Umno, MCA and Gerakan.

“No one should view education issues through a political lens,” said Chai, adding that the school board would invite anyone who is willing to assist the school.

The chairperson was worried that a pledge of RM120k by Education Ministry through the deputy minister Wee Ka Siong may be retracted.

“He (Wee) said he has approved the funds, but we must wait until the Feb 22 (today) and see what other issues we have. Then, we must ask (Sungai Pelek assemblyperson) Yap Ee Wah (from MCA) to call him,” said Chai.

Inviting the MB was not in vain. He announced a donation of of RM50,000 to its coffers, courtesy of the Selangor state government, and also announced that the state government would assist the school in adjacent vacant land for expansion purposes.

At a press conference later, Anwar responded to the possibility that the Education Ministry may withhold funding for the school.

“That would not be very smart. This is about education and the rights of all schools. This (the money) is not coming from the education minister’s pockets. If it was, he can hold it. We’re talking about taxpayers money and funds which have been promised.

“I think it is absurd and irresponsible on the part of the deputy (education) minister to threaten schools in this manner and treat Chinese schools as part of the MCA outfit… don’t condemn children just because you have lost support of the Chinese community,” he said.

Response from Wee:

Deputy Education Minister Wee denied that his ministry had exerted pressure on teachers not to attend today’s event. He told Malaysiakini that he did not hold back on the RM120,000 funding to Sin Ming school. According to him, the final approval of the funding will be made next month.

I think MCA won’t dare to do anything as stupid as that. It will be the death knell for the party if it is seen potentially harming chinese schools. Anyway, I think the school was trying to pre-empt any backlash from politicians at federal level by given ample publicity to the pledge by Education Ministry. As it is, the episode in SJKC Damansara (relocated to Tropicana)  is still a bitter pill to swallow even though the school has been reopened this year. They won’t want to have another potential bomb on their hands.

I wonder if this happened to Tamil schools, what would the response be from community political leaders.