Penang govt urged to use back old method in providing school project sites

GEORGE TOWN: The DAP-led Penang govt has been asked to revert to the old method in providing the sites to build schools in the state.
Federal Action Council for Penang chairman, Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Osman said the state government should continue with the old method, with the developer providing the sites for primary and secondary schools in any housing scheme and should hand over the sites to the Education Ministry.
"Thus, they can automatically hand over the sites to the ministry, which is responsible for setting up schools as enshrined in the Federal Constitution," he said at a news conference, here, today.
Zainal Abidin said the method used now was different as developers would have to hand over the school project sites to the state government and not the government responsible for education.
"Previously, the developers had to hand over the sites to the federal government or Education Ministry but this changed from 2009, based on the decision of the State Planning Commmittee for the sites to be handed over to the state government.
"This creates problems as education is under the jurisdiction of the federal government, while the school project sites from the developers now belong to the state government," he said.
Zainal Abidin hoped the issue could be resolved amicably through discussions between the federal and state governments on schools that needed to be built in Penang.
"We fear that eventually, the allotted land might not be used for building schools as requested by the Education Ministry," he said. — Bernama