All’s quiet at Tamil school with only two pupils

Three’s company: (From left) S. Kishare Kumar teaching his students Sharvin and Shavatha at SJK (T) Sungai Papan in Pengerang.

(The Star) - PENGERANG: The start of a new year is usually the busiest and noisiest for any school but in SJK (T) Ladang Sungai Papan, there is only silence in its hall.

Its Parent-Teacher Association chairman L. Krishnasamy is now pinning his hopes on the Petronas Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project to boost the school’s fortune.

The school, located in the middle of an oil palm plantation, currently has only two pupils in Year Six, outnumbered by the school staff comprising a principal, two teachers, two security guards and two gardeners.

Its Parent-Teacher Association chairman L. Krishnasamy, who runs a sundry shop in the estate, said student numbers had been dwindling since the other estate workers started migrating to the bigger towns of Ulu Tiram and Pasir Gudang.

“For the past few years, there has been no new student enrolled for Year One,” he said, adding that the school was equipped with classrooms, an office and even a resource centre.

Fretting about the school’s future by year-end when it would no longer have any pupil, Krishnasamy, who has been the PTA chairman for the past decade, said there used to be over a hundred Indian families living there in the 1960s and 1970s.

“Now, only a dozen people are left and most of the rubber has been replaced with oil palm. Most of the workers here are also Indonesians,” he said, adding that the nearest Tamil school was 45km away in Kota Tinggi.

However, Krishnasamy is upbeat that the opening of the RAPID project here over the next few year will see pupils trickling in.

“There will surely be many people who will move here. We can be an option for those who intend to send their children to Tamil schools,” he said.

As for pupils Sharvin Raj and N. Shavatha, they do not mind being the only ones studying in the school.

“We enjoy each other’s company,” said Sharvin, whose father, R. Ravichandran, is the school principal for the past two years.