Penang Federal Action Council (FAC) chairman Zainal Abidin Osman said due to this practice, the Education Ministry was facing trouble building schools in Penang.

He said typically, housing developers would alienate a plot of land for schools and subsequently hand it over to the Federal Land Commissioner.

He said the practice, however, came to an end in 2009 after the Penang government ordered all land alienated for schools to be handed over to the State Planning Committee (SPC) instead.

Zainal said developers who built a certain number of houses, that is 1,500 units and above, were usually asked to reserve a plot of land for a primary or secondary school.

“We would like to ask the state government to go back to the old way of handing the land over to the Federal Land Commissioner.

“It is the right thing to do as education comes under the Federal Government.

“I am afraid and, of course, I am assuming, perhaps the land marked for educational institutions have been used for something else,” he said at a press conference here today.

Meanwhile, when contacted, state Education Committee chairman P Ramasamy said he would respond to the matter later today.