Aug
04
2008
After the recent forced laborer case in his own constituency, Dr S.Subramaniam says that effective August 1, contractors and companies supplying workers to plantations must register with the Manpower Department. He said failure to do so will lead to legal action.
Dr Subramaniam said a study by the Manpower Department of 1,408 plantations recently revealed that 15,201 workers were contractored by 1,066 contractors and nine companies supplying workers.
Houses
- 49,565 workers’ houses of which 41,207 were built according to the Workers Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990 while the rest were “sub-standard” and needed improvement.
- ministry was also actively promoting a scheme whereby workers could eventually buy the houses they lived in.
Utilities
- On electricty and water suppply, 33,500 workers’ houses were supplied by public enterprises while the rest were supplied by sources maintained by their employers.
- large portion of plantations supplied electricity at commercial rates and that was not fair to the workers. To overcome the problem the Manpower Department met with TNB and the plantations and that TNB agreed to provide electricity to the houses via individual meters.
- the department was asked to talk to the relevant agencies to ensure water supplied was clean.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Jul
26
2008
There was a meeting on Thursday to
discuss about the partially-aided Tamil schools, chaired by
Education Minister,
Hishamuddin. Others included Devamany, Murugiah (PPP), Saravanan.
The meeting repeated the same mantra on the schools being on private or estate land, but this time there are plans to get those lands from the plantation/private companies and convert to government owned. With quite a number of schools on GLC lands, it should not be a problem, and should have never been a hurdle in the first place.
While the report says there are about 250 (or half the schools) were in private land, if I’m not mistaken, more than 320 schools (about 2/3) are partially aided.
There should also be efforts to relocate under-enrolled schools to other places. Education Ministry should set up a channel for residents/community to forward their requests. If there are ample number of potential students, let’s say 200 of them, then relocation must be seriously considered.
But what made me stand up was the news report in Minnal FM which says that MIC was thankful for government to converting schools after getting the land from plantations. This is quite misleading because the meeting highlighted the possibility only, and nothing has been done yet.
One have to ask why this effort is being taken now. What was the catalyst? Obviously Samy Vellu and MIC 
From the Star:
KUALA LUMPUR: The Government will consider converting the status of partially aided Tamil primary schools to fully aided, if the land issue can be solved.
Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the problem was that about 250 Tamil primary schools were presently built on estate land.
Status problem: Hishammuddin (right), Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department S.K. Devamany (middle) and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator T. Murugiah holding copies of the ministry’s reports on the status of Tamil primary schools after the meeting yesterday.
“We can’t have a fully aided school if the land doesn’t belong to us,” he told reporters after chairing a special committee meeting to overcome Tamil school issues.
He said the ministry had to identify if the land belonged to government-linked companies, private companies or individuals.
Besides land, he said, the Government also had to look at other issues such as the supply of teachers, upgrading of schools and under-enrolled schools.
“There is no point converting a school if it only has three pupils. This is why in our meeting, we identified the actual number of pupils and schools, schools which need to be upgraded or are overcrowded,” he said.
There are presently 523 Tamil primary schools in the country.
He said the committee found that the overall situation at Tamil primary schools was not as bad as painted by some parties.
“We are also working closely with the Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry to upgrade the infrastructure of Tamil schools in plantations,” he said.
Hishammuddin said 171 applications had been approved in cases of children who do not have birth certificates as long as their parents obtained a confirmation letter from their village headman or the Village Development and Safety Committee (JKKK) head to allow them to go to school.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Jul
20
2008
While MIC is in 7th heaven over the proposed plans to improve the Indian community, I read with interest the news about a Chinese school being relocated from an under-enrolled location in Perak to a very urban Damansara, next January. The school, SJK (C) Chung Hua Ladang Serapoh, located in Parit, will be set up at the original location of SJK (C) Damansara in Section 17, itself a contentious issue since the school was relocated to Tropicana, Damansara in 2001. About 50 over students did not move to the new school, but instead studied in a temporary school in a temple nearby. Well, my focus is not on the Chinese schools issues, but the outcome - a school was relocated from another state due to under-enrollment. End result - number of Chinese schools not reduced.
I think this is the line that MIC and the community to should follow. Rather than accepting meekly the idea to merge schools (repeated in the MIC general assembly as well), MIC and the Education Ministry must do a study and identify areas that lack such schools. Then, relocate the schools to those places. With such move, a newer building will attract parents to send their kids to Tamil schools, since those that are around now usually leaves much to be desired.
By the way, while many of the changes in 9th Malaysian Plan review had figures provided, the part on Indian community were not. Not allocation was mentioned, so we still have to wait for a while.
Popularity: 1% [?]
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