KUALA LUMPUR: Pupils’ own language (POL) classes should be during school hours and not on weekends, said MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
“POL classes in schools have been ongoing and we want them to be in the timetable,” he said.
He said that had always been the request of Chinese students in secondary schools.
“I think the Government is definitely helping to iron this out and ensure that POL classes are conducted during school hours,” Liow said.
Chinese is listed as a POL subject and at some national secondary schools in the country, and it is taught after school hours.
Liow, who is also the Transport Minister, was speaking to reporters after attending a ground-breaking ceremony at the Chong Hwa Independent High School here yesterday.
He announced that the Federal Government had approved a 3ha piece of land behind the school for its use.
“This is the Government’s commitment to helping all schools, regardless of stream in our country,” he said.
A nine-storey school block will be built to accommodate Chong Hwa’s increasing student population, already numbering 5,000 students now.
The project is estimated to cost RM30mil and will take two years to complete.
Liow also urged the Penang government to reconsider its plan to ask the Penang Chinese Girls’ High School to give up a 30ft strip of land in return for being allowed to build a new block, if the claim was true.
Its alumni had claimed that the land would be taken from the school’s frontyard which borders Jalan Gottlieb.
It had argued that the vehicular traffic on that road would increase dramatically after the Penang Transport Master Plan was implemented, making it dangerous for its students if the frontyard was shortened.-thestar
