Bagan Dalam assemblyman Satees Muniandy told FMT that the state government would hold a meeting with education department officials, the school administrators, parent-teacher association and Assumption Butterworth Alumni Association. Deputy chief minister P Ramasamy, who is executive councillor for education, would chair the meeting, he said.
Satees said the state government hoped the school could be saved, as it is one of the oldest in the state.
News of the closure comes as schools are preparing to reopen for the delayed third-term of the 2021 school year today and on Monday.
The decision to close the school was disclosed by the Save Assumption School joint task force, formed by former pupils and the parent-teacher association.
Vernon Fernandez, spokesman for the group, said they were informed of the closure on Saturday by deputy state education director Abdul Said Hussain, who said the land on which the school was built was being taken over by the owner, Sri Avenue Sdn Bhd.
The school, currently located at Kampung Ujung Batu near the Perai river, has faced problems for the past 26 years after the original site of the school in Jalan Assumption was sold to property developers in 1995.
The pupils used classrooms at Sekolah Kebangsaan Jalan Sungai Nyiur for 13 years until the current building was constructed on the present site in 2008, he said.
The school was founded in 1933 by the La Salle Brothers, an order of the Catholic church, but the church relinquished all rights when the school was relocated in 2008, Fernandez said.
He said the group was informed that the landowner had built the current school premises in 2008 on the understanding that the education ministry would buy over the development. However, the ministry had since rejected the offer to buy.
“As of the moment, the joint task force is not able to get hold of any representative of the landowner to verify Abdul Said’s claim,” Fernandez said.
He said Abdul Said had stated that the school’s education licence would be revoked upon the school’s closure.
As the school prepares for the shutdown, Fernandez said the joint task force would do whatever it could to ensure the well-being and welfare of the pupils and that they finish their primary schooling without disruption.