Parents fed up with inaction from education department, chip in to buy 50 fans for school to cool stuffy classroom

The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of a school in Klang Valley got fed up with the inaction by the education department and used their own money to buy 50 stand fans to help cool their children’s hot and stuffy classrooms.

Speaking to FMT, a spokesperson said the association spent RM8,000 on the fans to be placed in 20 classrooms as they had enough waiting from the education department to resolve the problem.

“The students have been complaining to parents of their discomfort and how stuffy and hot their classrooms were. We went personally to check on this and found the claims were true.” said the spokesperson.

He added that the ceiling fans in the classrooms were inadequate and the standing fans made a lot of difference.

The spokesperson said the district education office had ignored the problem despite them raising this issue several times.

“The headmaster and teachers thanked the PTA for this huge help as they say there are just too many bureaucratic procedures involved to get the education authorities to resolve this problem,” he said.

However, it turned out that this is just one of the many other unresolved issues that are affecting both students and teachers.

Among the unresolved problems in the school are:

• Lack of parking space, forcing teachers to park outside the school.
• Classes are too big; there are about 40 to 50 pupils in a class.
• The school was built in 2002 and has not been extended or upgraded since then to meet the demands of the school.
• More pupils were allowed to enrol in the school although the school could not cope.

Nonetheless, teachers are afraid to speak up as they fear the repercussions from the district education officers and they aren’t allowed to speak to the media.

The spokesperson also claimed that the education officials did not visit the school to find out the problems on the ground.

He said that the school was built in 2002 and the enrollment has been growing steadily but the school has not been extended or upgraded since its inception.