Chow said the RM50 rate applied to all school land regardless of previous charges, whether owned by government-linked bodies or not, except international schools.

He said it would cover 106 school land titles owned by government-linked bodies and 201 directly owned by schools, including vernacular Chinese and Tamil schools.

Chow said this new rate was aimed at ensuring uniformity as schools were previously charged widely differing amounts because of the absence of a clear policy.

First-grade quit rent

Separately, Chow said complaints over steep quit rent increases for first-grade land were due to outdated assessments, pointing out that rates had not been reviewed since 1994.

He said many first-grade landowners had been paying agricultural rates regardless of actual land use.

“For the past 30 years, first-grade landowners, whatever the use, were paying agricultural rates, so the amount was very low,” he said.

Following a review, first-grade quit rent is now calculated based on actual land use.

Chow said the 50% quit rent rebate offered to landowners by the state government was subject to conditions, including that the amount payable after rebate should not be lower than what was paid the previous year.

He said landowners who believed their assessments were too high could submit appeals to their respective land offices, which had the authority to consider cases involving amounts of up to RM20,000, subject to justification.