Elementary school students protest swap

Elementary school students protest swap

MEDAN: Hundreds of students from six state-owned elementary
schools in Medan Maimoon subdistrict held a rally on Monday to
protest a land swap involving their school buildings.

Accompanied by their parents, the students went to the
prosecutor's office in Medan, the municipality's legislative
council and the Medan mayoralty office.

They asked the mayoralty to cancel the deal and save their
school buildings.

The deputy chairman of the prosecutor's office, Zaidan Asnawi,
told the students and parents that his office would resolve the
issue.

Pardi, 45, one of the parents, said they were opposed to the
Medan mayor's plan to relocate the six schools to Helvetia,
Kampung Baru and Gang Merdeka.

"They are all flood-prone areas. We don't want our children's
schools to always be affected by flooding," Pardi told The
Jakarta Post.

According to him, the local administration wanted to replace
the school buildings with shop-houses. "A vocational school
building that used to be located near one of the elementary
school buildings had been turned into shop-houses," he said. --JP