Charity school grabbed by village authorities
XI`AN: Over 100 students in Shaanxi province have been kicked out of a primary school, built by local villagers and a Hong Kong charity, after village authorities gave the school to an automobile retailer on a 10-year lease.
The primary school was built in 2010 to replace the old one, but only two weeks after the pupils moved into Run Run Primary School they were ordered out and had to return to their previous classrooms, residents of Zhaocun village in the city of Weinan said on Monday.
Village officials said they decided to lease the new school to an automobile retailer, according to Li Feng, a local villager.
According to the lease contract, the village administration will receive a total of 1.75 million yuan (RM839,126) from Weida Automobile Services.
“The primary school was mainly funded by our compensation of land acquisition,” a villager named Li Dingzhu said, referring to the 1.3 million yuan (RM623,351) taken from the villagers’ compensation.
To build the new school, over 250,000 yuan (RM119,875) was dished out by a charity of Hong Kong media mogul Run Run Shaw.
Officials of Zhaocun village not only abused Shaw’s generosity, but also violated laws on public welfare donation, which forbids the application of donation to be changed without the donators’ consent, said Shi Ying, deputy dean with the law school of Northwest University.
Li Wusheng, director with the village’s supervision committee, argued that their decision was based on “the request of many parents”.
The local social affairs bureau promised that the students would be back to Run Run school by March.