Perak Umno Youth appeals for land for religious schools - Star

IPOH: Sept 1, 2008 By CLARA CHOOI

Perak Umno Youth has urged the state government to allocate land to all Islamic independent schools in the state.

Its chief Zainol Fadzi Paharudin said while the wing respected the state’s decision to give land to all Chinese independent schools, it believed the move should also benefit the Malays.

“We respect the decision and the reason for giving land to the Chinese schools.

“But we would like to appeal to the Mentri Besar to give land to all the state’s Islamic independent schools as well,” he said in a statement Sunday.

Zainol added that all decisions made by the state should defend the rights of the Malays and the bumiputras.

“The wing would like to urge the Mentri Besar to always look after the Malay community in Perak,” he said.

On Friday, Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin announced that the state government had given an approval in principle to allocate 1,000ha of land to the state’s nine Chinese independent schools.

It had been reported that this would allow the schools to form a company that would manage the land so that the revenue could fund the schools’ administration.

Nizar had also said that the allocation was a long-term solution to aid the financially independent schools as the state could only afford to give an annual allocation of RM30,000.