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.