Still waiting: The school was forced to move into its current makeshift cabins in 1999.
PETALING JAYA: A Pahang Tamil primary school’s 25-year dream of moving out from makeshift cabins and into buildings of their own have hit another snag.
SJK(T) Ladang Jeram national-type school, about 20 minutes from Kuantan, is facing another delay in the construction of permanent buildings due to the status of its school board (LPS), said Datuk Nadeson Kandasamy.
Nadeson, the board chairman, said last year, the Attorney-General’s Chambers told them that the LPS had to be registered under the Registrar of Societies (ROS).
This is so that the board can lease the land for the new school.
“But when we went to the ROS office in Pahang on Friday, its director told us that we could not be registered. This is because we have already been registered under the Education Ministry,” Nadeson said when contacted.
The board will now inform the ministry of this latest setback and wait for the minister to decide.
In 2014, when a tender was given out to a company to build a new school, there was no issue with the status of the LPS and the need for it to be registered with the ROS, Nadeson said.
“I don’t understand why this is happening because the land that the new school will occupy belongs to the ministry. The ministry also pays for the school supplies and salaries of our teachers. There should not be a problem for us to build a new school.”
Nadeson believes that it is likely that the board will have to wait another three to six months for the ministry to break the latest impasse.
“But we hope that this can be settled sooner. Because once we have all the approvals, it still takes about two years to actually build the new school,” he said.
This setback is the latest that has dogged the school, which has 43 pupils and 10 teachers, ever since it was forced to move in 1999 from its original site in Jeram Estate. The school was first built in 1952.
Pupils, teachers and other staff were moved into cabins at a temporary site while new buildings at a permanent plot of land were being built, said Nadeson, who has been chairman since 2012.
Four years after the tender was issued in 2014, the developer ran into financial problems and the project was halted.
The project’s cost had reportedly totalled RM14mil.
Efforts to revive the project between 2018 and 2023 were hampered due to the change in education ministers in the different administrations during that period, Nadeson said.
Although the new Education Minister has shown a commitment to getting the project back on track, Nadeson was nevertheless disappointed with this latest snag.
“The ministry has consistently given us funds for upgrading and improving the cabins for staff and pupils. All salaries, including for security guards and cleaners are paid by the ministry.
“Rooms for classes, teachers, administrators, canteen and toilets are all in makeshift cabins.
“We constantly worry about the safety of the children as we are surrounded by an old oil palm plantation and there are wild animals. Thankfully, nothing bad has happened but we still need proper school buildings,” he added.
When contacted, Semambu assemblyman Chan Chun Kuang said the issue is currently being handled by the Education Ministry, as the plot of land for the school’s permanent buildings has been given to the Federal Government.
