news feature Shoppers push their trolleys along the aisles and pick up canned food and household goods from the well-stacked shelves while symbols clash and drums beat to the tune of Chinese New Year songs blaring from speakers. It is a typical supermarket scene, except that this one is found at the multipurpose hall of a 75-year-old Chinese primary school in Indera Kayangan, Perlis.

The school is SRJK (C) Khoon Aik and the supermarket has been operating for nearly two years now in the school hall that cost RM1.5 million to build.

The 1,000 sq m hall meant for graduation ceremonies and co-curricular activities was completed with money collected from the local community, in early 1999.

However, in July 2000, it was rented out to Pasaraya Taman Kemajuan (PTK). The supermarket's original premises, half a kilometre from the school, burned down in June 2000.

School committee chairperson Khor Kow Teng said the hall was rented out partly because they did not want to see the 100 or so supermarket employees lose their jobs.

According to Khor, they did not consider renting out the school hall a problem. "The supermarket will move out soon and everything will be back to normal," he said.

Not surprisingly, converting the school hall into a supermarket was not easy.

Local residents said the proposal initially met with strong objections from parents of children at the school.

The parents felt it was wrong to deprive students of a proper hall for the sake of commercial interests. They were concerned that the traffic increase in the area would endanger their children.

The municipal council also voiced its concern over the unprecedented proposal.

However, the objections died down soon following assurances of the "greater good" that would ensue.

The school needed money to build a three-storey building with 18 classrooms for computer lessons for some 1,000 students.

The RM20,000 monthly rental from the supermarket comes in handy for this purpose, as the government grant was "not much".

The Education Act 1996 states that all schools - regardless of their teaching medium - deserve to get 'capital grant' from the government to build school buildings or extend existing premises, and purchase furniture and equipment.

But Chinese or Tamil schools have long complained of difficulty in obtaining grants for development from the government.

The SRJK (C) Khoon Aik committee and its Parent-Teachers Association sought help from MCA and the state government so that they could deal with the "proper authorities" regarding the conversion of the hall into a supermarket.

The issue was reported in the Chinese newspapers (albeit confined only to the Kedah, Penang and Perlis editions of the paper) for a few weeks.

And during Saturday's by-election, Chinese educationist movements urged the government to give grants to the school so that it will not need to rent out its hall to obtain funds.

However, this call failed to garner much support from local residents though many would agree that the government should pay for the construction of the new classrooms.

"The government and MCA have done a lot for us. We can't think of any other way to raise the money to get things done," said one parent.

"Most parents seemed okay with it and we want to help out the supermarket."

The supermarket managing director, Oui Ean Siong, said the reconstruction of the supermarket at its old site is due to be completed by April.

The controversy surrounding the school hall, or rather on the non-existence of it, will be over within the next few months when the lease to the supermarket ends.

But it is disconcerting and rather bizarre that a school hall had to be rented out to a supermarket in the first place, just so it could get more funds for development.