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I’m not privy to the full proposal by the MIC as mentioned by its Information Chief, Saravanan. But I wonder, how do those non-Hindu students be accommodated while Hinduism is thought in the classes, in the name of Tamil language? We complain when our young children are “taught” to “baca doa” or youths forced listen to Islam-glorifying speeches either in school or universities, so obviously its unfair to force others to listen to Hinduism.

One option is to provide religious classes during the Agama Islam period. Only those parents who do not want to the children to be taught religion should send their kids for Moral Classes (perhaps the parents are atheist, or have no faith in the teachers, or are unsure of their religion…whatever). This is a potential logistic nightmare as thousands of religious teachers will be needed to teach Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Bahaism, Sikhism and so on. Coupled with lack of classroom, it will be a doomed effort.

Political wise, this will be deemed as undermining Islam as religious classes are taught in school just like Islam. So, those folks at UMNO and its frontmen will start to protest. Another headache.

So, I’m not sure how MIC came up with this proposal:

The MIC yesterday urged the Education Ministry to consider the party’s proposal to incorporate religious aspects into the Tamil language curriculum at the primary school level.

In making the proposal, MIC information chief Datuk M. Saravanan expressed disappointment over the current Tamil language curriculum.

“Learning the Tamil language is unlike studying the other languages as religion should be a main component of the curriculum.

“Therefore, I urge the Education Ministry to make the necessary changes to the Tamil language curriculum so that young Indians can be taught religious values from an early age,” he said after opening the annual general meeting of the Tamil Teachers Union of Malaya.

Saravanan, who is Federal Territories Deputy Minister, said that one of the reasons why Tamil schools were being politicised was the absence of short- and long-term plans for the schools.

The second thing which alarms me is the statement that “one of the reasons why Tamil schools were being politicised was the absence of short- and long-term plans for the schools”. Now, is this like throwing mud into one’s own face? The champion of the community, the guardian of Tamil schools, is telling us that THERE IS ABSENCE of plans??? What the $%^$&*@$%@^$&%&#%@%%. Yeah, I’m pissed off. 62 years and this is the nonsense we get. Another great job. Why don’t these people do us all a favor and go to the top most floor of a highrise and jump off?

I hope to God that Saravanan was misinformed, misquoted, misled, or mis-whatever.

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I read with surprise the statement from MALAYA National Tamil School Teachers Union President P. Tharmalinggam which said that union is unhappy that only 100 temporary teachers out of 1,067 have been given the opportunity to pursue the teacher’s training course during the holidays.

Maybe he did not realise that 100 out 1067 is 9.37%, which is more than the Indian community population percentage. So, if going by race-based quota, how can he ask for more places? From where did the union get the courage? Not HINDRAF, I guess. Must be the MIC rebranding.

The rest of his statement:

He said there are more than 900 vacancies in Tamil schools and more temporary teachers were needed to overcome the shortage. He said more Tamil school teachers were needed every year as enrolment was increasing .

The union has been forwarding memoranda requesting the Edu­cation Ministry to increase its intake of temporary Tamil schoolteachers for the training during the holiday courses.

He said the standard of education in Tamil schools could be improved with the deployment of trained teachers.

“Most temporary teachers have been working for more than five years and they have the necessary experience, dedication and commitment to give quality education to the school children,” he said.

The report should highlight how many places are available in the first place before proceeding to the enrollment. Maybe the places are limited and there also requests from Chinese schools, religious schools, and national schools.

Actually, my cousin got a place and had finished her studies earlier this year. She’s waiting to be transferred to accompany her husband in another state.

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This is an interesting news. It has been recently detected (meaning someone want to implicate) that Samy Vellu is the beneficiary of a 3-acre land next to SJKT Effingham, in Bandar Utama, worth about RM50 million. The land is meant to house MIC’s new headquarters.

MIC Secretary General Dr S. Subramaniam says the approval to obtain and build the headquarters was done legally since its being held by trustees as per its constitution.

In addition, each of its trustees executed a ‘Pengakuan Penempatan’ addressed to the land office confirming that they (on behalf of MIC) as trustees were making the said application.

- Malaysiakini.

Application was done at Petaling Land Office in the year 2000. He says that all parties concerned were clear that the MIC was proprietor of the land. Proof is available that assessment rates, quit rent etc were paid by MIC.

The title deed was issued in July 2005, and is being kept by MIC‘ property division but it seems they overlooked the error in proprietor name which should have been “MIC” instead of “Samy Vellu“. But MIC is in the process of correcting this mistake. It is also stated that the land have been reported in all its audited accounts since 2000.

According to Malaysiakini who picked The Sun’s news, The Petaling Land Office gave the Barisan Nasional party a 99-year lease to 12,141 sq metres of the land in 2005 - making it the largest recipient.

The newspaper report detailed that the 24,000 sq metre land was for both the school, SRJK (Tamil) Ephingam and other public amenities as intended by the area developer. The land was handed over by the developer to the state government for this purpose, however
it was then procured by private parties - with MIC being one of them (buying the land for RM3 million). The buyers have since developed the land for commercial purposes.

There’s two issue here: first the naming of Samy Vellu as benificiary and secondly the usurping of land meant for Tamil school. For the first case, we can take it as genuine mistake and let MIC correct the mistake via legal means. After all, the land have been reported in their accounts all this while.

The second issue bothers me. For the champions of Tamil schools, guardian of Indian community and other self-anointed title-holders to buy land meant for school is revolting. 6 acres were allocated to the school, SJKT Ladang Effingham in 1995 by the developer who gave the land to the state goverment. The state goverment (Menteri Besar at that time was Abu Hassan Omar) then sold half of the land on a 99-year lease to MIC for RM3 million in 2000.

According to Subang MP Sivarasa, MIC should not have bought the land as it should have been aware that the Selangor Education Department had also stipulated that the minimum size of all schools should be five acres (But Seafield school in Kg Medan was 0.6 acre? - remember Toyo and Samy at Kg Medan?).

The school was built in 1998 and consist of a field and a three-story building.

Now, this may mean that MIC honestly did not know the actual purpose of the land when it made the purchase, which in my opinion seriously damages its credibility. OR it may mean that MIC are not really worried if the school has 3-acre only.

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