The newly-christened SJK (C) Chung Hwa Damansara. — Pictures by Choo Choy May
PETALING JAYA, Dec 29 — The residents of Kampung Baru Damansara here do not care who takes credit over the impending reopening of the local Chinese vernacular school.
All they are concerned with now is that eight years after the school was closed, igniting furious protests and becoming a symbol in the Chinese education cause, it will finally reopen its doors to their children.
The MCA and DAP are, however, not so subtly trying to gain political mileage out of the reopening of SJK (C) Damansara, albeit under a different name.
MCA site visits have seen former Petaling Jaya Utara MP Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun joining Deputy Education Minister Datuk Wee Ka Siong, while banners of Chew's successor Tony Pua and local state assemblyman Dr Cheah Wing Yin from DAP greet passers-by as work continues to ensure the newly-christened SJK (C) Chung Hwa Damansara is ready for the new school year on Jan 5.
However, the Save Our School (SOS) committee, made up of local residents, says there has been no favour done for them.
They point out that they have merely got back a right that they have been owed for "more than 10 per cent of a person's lifetime."
Representatives told The Malaysian Insider this as they sat in front of a board displaying the fact that it has been 2,916 days since the school was taken from them.
"We are just putting this timebomb there. Maybe it will just keep ticking or maybe tomorrow it will explode," committee member Wong Siew Keong said, referring to the sensitive nature of vernacular education in Malaysia.
Acting president Hew Wah added that the only thing that mattered was that they got their school back.
"Let whoever say it is because of what they did. For us, whether it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat," he said, paraphrasing an often repeated quote from Deng Xiao Ping, the late reformist leader of China.
"This is our basic right of education, you owe us this," he said of the government, while making reference to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
SJK (C) Damansara was closed down at the beginning of the 2001 school year with the government citing traffic congestion and noise pollution as reasons.
Prior to shifting it to its new home in Tropicana, students had to share the premises of SJK (C) Puay Chai (2) in the neighbouring suburb of Bandar Utama for a couple of years.
Up to today, the residents are still bewildered by that decision.
"These reasons are not reasons at all. If traffic is congested, why are they building a new mall less than 100 metres down the road?" Wong said, referring to the newly-opened Tropicana City along the Sprint Highway.
"In fact, you can ask residents in Tropicana, they have been cursing over the traffic jams caused by the new school there.
"And if noise pollution is a problem, then hundreds of other schools beside highways need to be moved as well," he added.
Work going on furiously to get the classrooms ready for the new school year.
Over the past eight years, the SOS committee has stoically soldiered on by running an independent school at the adjacent Ruan Liang temple.
Students were taught in air-conditioned containers and in its final year of operation, the makeshift school had 46 students taught by 10 teachers which, Hew quips, makes them better than government schools.
As such, while the residents are happy about the reopening of the school, they are prouder still of the support from the public, both near and far. Their last fund-raising dinner garnered over RM300,000.
Lim Jian An, the executive secretary, pointed out that contributions in terms of money, manpower and time, had come from all states of Malaysia and this showed that there was universal support for their cause.
But why then has it taken eight years for the government to respond?
Despite constant contact with the authorities over the past eight years, the committee has no concrete answer, only theories.
There was a development plan in place as they claim the school land is worth over RM1,000 per built-up square foot, according one such theory.
However, the committee recognises that the main stumbling block has been an unwritten government policy that vernacular schools can only be relocated instead of new ones being built for growing communities while those with dwindling enrolments are shut down as per normal practice.
"If you compare between 1970 and today, there are fewer Chinese schools around," Wong pointed out as the consequence of this policy.
Hence, SJK (C) Damansara had to be closed down for the new site in Tropicana to be opened.
This also explains the name Chung Hwa, which comes from a school in Parit, Perak — relocated, according to the government line.
Admitting it is a "give and take" compromise, the SOS committee insists, however, that they would not have agreed to such a move, if the school in Parit still had a healthy enrolment.
But having been told that it sits in a remote estate with only one Chinese among Malay and Indian students, they agreed.
"If even 20 Chinese students would be affected by the move, we would not have agreed," Hew said.
By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
29/12/08
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