New classrooms with no furniture

A Tamil school has a new RM3 million building with nothing in it.

PETALING JAYA: A Tamil school in Bukit Tinggi, Klang, has a new block of 20 classrooms, but the students and teachers who will occupy them may have to sit on the floor when school reopens next month.

The Ladang Highlands Tamil School has been waiting for furniture for the new building since February, when the school’s advisory board wrote to the Education Ministry for the provision.

R Kannan, the board member who wrote the letter, told FMT today that the ministry had yet to reply.

The school was established 103 years ago, when Bukit Tinggi was still a rubber plantation area.

“Even as late as 2005, we only had 65 pupils,” Kannan said. “However, by 2011, the number had soared to 900, compelling the Parent-Teacher Association to apply for an additional building to be built.”

In January 2012, the Education Ministry dished out RM3 million, allocated directly from the Prime Minister’s Department, for the construction of a four-storey building to house 20 classrooms.

The building was completed in August this year.

“But we were shocked when the Klang District Education Department told us that they will not be providing us with furniture,” said Kannan, who added that the application for the new building included a request for furniture.

He said the PTA had sent numerous letters to the relevant government agencies but had received no reply.

“Even Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan and National Tamil Schools Transformation Unit head NS Rajandran have not come back to us on the matter.

“I’m baffled as to why the ministry is not providing us with furniture when national schools gets state-of-the-art facilities when they get new buildings.”

He said the school urgently needed the furniture because there were only three weeks left before the new school session.

A check by FMT showed that the new building has yet to receive its certificate of fitness.