Penang officials seek to save former La Salle mission school slated for closure next month
KUALA LUMPUR: Penang state officials are slated to convene a meeting in an effort to save Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Assumption in Butterworth which is set to be permanently closed on Feb 28 after some 89 years.
Bagan Dalam assemblyman Satees Muniandy said the Penang government would hold a meeting with the Education Department officials, school administrators, and the parent-teacher association, news portal Free Malaysia Today reported yesterday.
Sarees said the meeting would be chaired by Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P. Ramasamy who is also the state executive councillor for education.
SK Assumption was reported to have been founded in 1933 by the La Salle Brothers, an order of the Catholic church. The church relinquished all rights when the school was relocated in 2008.
News of SK Assumption’s closure came as schools in some states reopened classrooms yesterday for the delayed thirdterm of the 2021 school year.
Its alumni and the parentteacher association had formed a joint task force called Save Assumption School joint task force.
Group spokesman Vernon
Christopher Fernandez said they were informed of the closure on Jan 8 by deputy state education director Abdul Said Hussain as the land, on which the school sits, is being claimed by its owner, Sri Avenue Sdn Bhd.
According to Free Malaysia Today, Sri Avenue agreed to set up SK Assumption on its land in 2008 on the understanding that the Education Ministry would buy over the development.
However, the news portal reported that the ministry had since rejected the offer to buy.
Fernandez said Abdul Said had stated that the school’s education licence would be revoked upon the school’s closure.
“As of the moment, the joint task force is not able to get hold of any representative of the landowner to verify Abdul Said’s claim,” Fernandez told Free Malaysia Today.
The school, currently located at Kampung Ujung Batu near the Perai river, has faced problems for the past 26 years after the original site of the school in Jalan Assumption was sold to property developers in 1995.
Students used classrooms at SK Jalan Sungai Nyiur for 13 years until the current building was constructed on the present site in 2008.