Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email Really 400 schools closed down since 1979? Wow! Anyway, good luck to Gerakan. They will be going against UMNO if want to fight for Tamil schools. These guys no need to create another committee, just work with exiting ones like HINDRAF, Tamil Foundation, EWRF, Tamil HM Association, MIC (heaven forbid!), the school PTAs etc.
I’m not sure how serious is Gerakan since they are not Indian-friendly party. No “suitable” candidates it seems for recent elections. So, how to have faith in people like Dr Krishnan?
Solution is simple for layman like me. Change the law. How difficult is that? Difficult since one good-for-nothing political party opposes it. All it needs is to get the legal team to draft changes, and vote in parliament. Which right minded parliamentarian won’t vote for converting partially-aided schools to fully-aided ones – (by buying the land or allowing for funds for such schools on par with other schools)? I bet there will be a bunch of them who are against it. They won’t let fellow coalition MPs to support such motion as well, if it was from the opposition.
This Gerakan effort will fail. If successful, MIC can close shop.
Gerakan man to look into Tamil school woes
source
KUALA LUMPUR: A Gerakan Youth leader is taking up the cause of Tamil schools, saying they should not remain the “stepchildren” of the education system.
Dr G. Krishan, a member of the Gerakan Youth central committee, said more than 400 Tamil schools had been closed since 1979 mainly because of a lack of students and land problems.
He said these and other issues would be tackled by the Gerakan Indian Task Force Education Committee, which held its inaugural meeting yesterday. Krishnan, who chairs the committee, said efforts would be made to ensure that the 524 Tamil schools in the country were fully aided and had proper infrastructure.
Citing the case of SK Tamil Kuala Sepetang in Perak, where 67 students were studying in two cabin-like structures, Krishnan said it was time such schools were given proper premises. The Education Ministry had promised to look into the problem four years ago but nothing had come of it. The committee will visit the Kuala Sepetang school as well as six others to get a more comprehensive picture of the problems facing Tamil schools. “We will be talking to teachers, parents and students.”
Dear Pooban
Saying that UMNO is against such proposed law is not just off the mark but also shows a lack of understanding of the issue.
Unfortunately UMNO has been made a scapegoat for all problems facing the society. An easy, lazy solution for Indians to adopt to.
First of all Gerakan has been completely decimated in the 12GE and has no political standing either with the people or the Federal/State governments to contribute any meaningful help to this issue. In fact even when they were in power they didn’t lift a finger to help Tamil schools.
Coming back to the issue of Tamil schools, please understand the issues behind it before accusing UMNO. I have no special liking or dislikes for them but I hate such simplistic and racist arguments.
The core problem that has been the point of contention is the status of the national language and schools. The reason for the reluctance of the govt to support Chinese and Tamil schools is their worry that this would create a situation of polarisation of races. The role of national schools are to bring all the races together. Unfortunately since the conversion of English medium to BM and some policy decisons had let to a situation of a racial divide in the nature of schools attended by Malaysian kids.
As we have seen this has let to the ethnic polarisation that we have now. I am from Tamil school but I was lucky to grow up in a place where they was a good mix of races. I had also taught in Tamil schools during my uni semester breaks. All these let me to decide to send my kids to national schools. These schools of course offer Tamil lessons so I have nothing to complain.
You see the real fear is that the more the govt supports the non-national schools the chance of more students going to Tamil / Chinese schools increases. No doubt there are problems for non Malay kids facing in these schools but much of these problems arise due to the lack of non Malay kids in the first place.
BTW I have yet to see HINDRAF helping the Indians in anyway other than getting them involved in useless street demos. I am sure Indians are happy now that the community is the weakness politically and most disunited. I don’t see PR helping Indians at all. All they wanted was our votes.
That Prof Ramasamy and Dr Xavier Jayakumar’s statement that they are not only the representatives of Indians and that Indians should not expect them too much as they are not MIC is an indication of things to come.
Good luck..
have agree with MP’s comment : “not Indian-friendly party” .
I came across a chinese Gerakan member whom said the chinese leaders are not recognizing Indian talents at branch level where Indian leaders’ ability not passed up to the top leadership to the extent where Dr.Kho made a blunt statement tht there’re no talents among party Indians for election candidacy .
Yes! I support fully aided tamil school!
ITs about time we have what is ours!. That is a part of tax payers money!…Nagelom tax kateromle!..
Udal Mannuku,
Uyir …hmm.. no no .. im not writing it.. then will be labelled as rasict.. lol…
Udal Mannuku ,
Uyir Ammavuku!.. 🙂
– tamil/chinese schools are fundamental rights of non-malays
– it’s absolute ridiculous to justify Gomen’s act to neglect these schools in the name of
preserving racial tolerance
– these school help to preserve the culture and roots of non-malays which you’ll never get in national schools.
– Killer , you make a good ambassador for umno .
– a joker is always a joker regardless it’s year 1957 or 2057
– yeah , good luck to you Killer , you’ll continue to be an enemy of tamils in malaysia
– dun ask wht others are doing or done to this community . Ask your boss what he has done to the community being
a sole representative for almost 2 decades . Wait…… well we all know that your party members are dumb and deaf . If not ,
the community will never scream as what we’re seeing now .
Hello VJ
We are not living in India but in Malaysia.
Tamil schools are not the only place to keep the culture and language alive. In the world (outside Tamil Nadu), Malaysia is the only place Tamil schools are freely available with govt support. Not even in Singapore they have Tamil schools. Does this mean Indian culture had died in these countries ?
You complain the govt neglected Tamil schools, get your facts right. Without the billions in govt support, there will be zero Tamil schools. The Chinese schools will survive as they are self-funded in many cases but NOT Tamil schools.
As I had said, you and your HINDRAF goons do not know what you talking about.
I studied in Tamil school, taught in Tamil school and have family members with extensive connections with the teaching in Tamil schools. So I clearly know what I am saying unlike many people here.
Killer ,
– i studied in Tamil school too and continued Tamil studies after std6 on my own effort . You’re not the only one . So i too know as clear as you or even better .
– agree with u , that we are not living in India but in Malaysia and similarly we are not living in Singapore but in Malaysia . So dun compare with Singapore in this case . Singapore applies Tamil as one of official language there . In Malaysia ??? So cut the crap lar…
So would you accept Tamil as one of the official language as an exchange to close down Tamil schools ?
Hi Killer,
I understand what you are trying to say. The polarisation problem is becoming less obvious now since the people are not clearly segmented according to location or jobs as compared to ages ago. These schools (except the chinese schools which have secondary level) only offer 6 years of education and if you remember Hishamuddin saying “what is important is the general national values” are same in our education system regardless of the medium. After spending about 6 hours in schools 5 days a week, kids have ample of time mixing with friends from other races – in football field, tuition, neighbourhood etc. Racial polarisation does not begin at school only, there are other factors as well. What we are seeing now in malaysian politics, is it because the indians and chinese in Malaysia are products of vernacular schools? Only the politicians paint it as such, saying schools wil create disharmony and polarisation. I say only the one-sided policies that put fear into the parents are the cause of it.
There are now indian and malay parents who send kids to Chinese school, valuing their discipline and power of Mandarin amid rise of China. why can’t we take that into consideration as a positive point?
The trend of moving away from national schools is due to government and its policies, as you mentioned. More racial tones like the malay supremacy, plus islamisation is driving away parents from national schools. And yet, we are to blame the parents? if the people in charge are sincere, they should be making efforts to attract and convince parents, not chase them away with ridiculous statements and rules. And then, they ask why we are not sending our kids to national schools. Isn’t that funny?
I’ll say the fault is still with UMNO, and of course by extension the yes men that make up the coalition. By offering better facilities and rights to the schools, it will even attract the malays.
By making all schools equal in terms of financing, it doesn’t mean BM is being sidelined. All schools still teach BM. It is still a compulsory subject. In fact, the threat comes from English, not vernacular languages.
the only way to attract parents is to make schools apolitical, areligious, non-racial. but sadly, that is not possible at all.
As for HINDRAF, i think their objectives are different, so I doubt they will do such services in the short term. perhaps when the organisation evolves beyond human rights issues.
as for Prof Ramasamy and Dr Xavier, what they may have wanted to convey is that not only Indian should help Indian, like what MIC propagates. the community must be able to approach other ADUNs as well to settle their problems. if any of the ADUNs turn them away, then we can see that BR is also making use of the community for votes. Let’s see if any such complaints arise soon.
Hi Poobalan
I got to disagree with you. I am not sure if you are from a Tamil school or have experience in the school system but I have.
The level of racial harmony in Malaysia has declined significantly since 1990s and it has gotten worse in the last 5 years or so due to internal and external reasons.
I have mentioned that I am from a Tamil school and attended a local university. I also taught in Tamil schools (as a temp) and have been involved in NGO activities in education for many many years. Our target has been always school kids and youths. Many of my siblings and relatives were /are school teachers/lecturers in Tamil / Secondary / college / Uni. As such I do have the knowledge about the subject that I am talking about. I have written extensively about these issues in MK and newspapers under a different pseudonym (I can reveal that privately to you).
I know what are the issues that non Malay (esp Indian) kids face in National schools (I have written about it too in MK). Another subject close to my heart is ethnic relations.
There are many reasons for ethnic disunity we have now and of course part of the problem is the govt policy (esp NEP). The causes are many and I don’t to talk about it as it is not relevant here.
But since kids spend most of their waking hours at school, the education institutions are the best place to start racial integration. It has been easier in the past with most of the kids attending the national schools but with the increasing polarisation, the importance of national schools has increased tremendously in nation building and ethnic relationship.
For example indian kids mix only with indians in Tamil school. Once they go home, they watch Astro’s many Indian channels,converse in tamil, read Tamil mags, newspapers and watch Tamil movies and listen Tamil songs.
Once they get to secondary school, these habits hard to change and stick to themselves. Some of my siblings / relatives are teaching in secondary schools and say that the difference in Indian and Chinese kids from national and national-type schools are very obvious.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting national-type schools are promoting racial polarisation (though they do contribute to it). What I am trying to say is that schools are the best place to reverse the declining ethnic unity.
I agree that some national schools have become rather unfriendly to non Malay kids but again the reason is due to our reluctance in sending kids there caused the non Malay % become very small. This has effectively turned the national schools into “malay” schools. As such slowly negative influences such as Islamisation has crept in.
It is silly to use the rise of China as the reason for us to send the kids to Chinese schools (whether we are Chinese or non Chinese). First of all, it possible to learn Mandarin in national school. Look at Singapore, they do not have Chinese schools at all but they have much bigger presence in China than us.
Since my job covers China, I learned Mandarin from an language school on my own. But having dealt with China for about 10 years now, I can state the importance of Mandarin has been overstated. There are ten thousands of Westerners who live in China without knowing how to speak Mandarin.
I also disagree that English is a threat. It is idiocy to repeal the usage of English in Science and Maths with mother-tongue. This will prove to be a very expensive mistake. The mastery of English is (or was) one of our strongest selling points. Already the standard of English has fallen to an alarming level and if we going back on this decision, then it is Good Night Malaysia for FDI.
Also I still cannot understand how you could blame UMNO for this. May be you could explain further.
As for Prof Ramasamy, that’s an idiotic statement. How can he claim so ? He has to remember than if he is not an Indian, he would never be a DCM2. I never ever recall Samy or other senior MIC leaders saying the same thing even though they were/are in the position of power. This is a disgraceful statement and an insult to Indians.
gud luck to Gerakan…
Hi Killer,
I’m not from tamil school, but have been involved with programs involved with schools for 10 years or so. i also have relatives who work in tamil schools. many of my friends are from tamil schools as well. i may not have much experience as you do.
i think you made it clear in your reply that there are “internal and external reasons”, “part of cause of national disunity is NEP”. Yes, schools are one place where the national disunity can be reduced. but then it involves more effort to de-polarise national schools. at the rate things are going, i don’t see it happening any time soon. The trend to send children to vernacular schools happened due to islamisation and discriminative policies in teaching, posting, teacher education, rules and regulation etc. That drove parents away. Not the other way around. I think you can check the statistics and see that intake of vernacular schools began to increase in last 10 years or so, whereas it was stagnant before that. Coupled with increasing malay population and lack of quality in national schools, parents (especially chinese) chose vernacular schools.
what you were trying not to suggest is actually correct, national schools are promoting racial polarisation because of the fact that they are a contributing factor, though not the only one.
Well, actually if you ask parents who send their kids to chinese schools, they gave reason the importance of mandarin and quality of education. i have asked some of the parents, and of course we can read it in papers. it may be overstated as per your experience, but parents belief otherwise. teaching of mandarin and tamil in national schools are kind of half-hearted, so not worth mentioning. As for singapore, the have option of taking chinese as a language, (other options are tamil and malay).
yeah, english is not a threat, but being thought of so by the pro-Malays and vernacular school proponent. i personally support teaching of Science and Maths in English. what i was trying to say is that compared to vernacular languages, english is a bigger challenge for malay language. thus vernacular schools should not be seen as challenging malay language.
the cause of disunity due to the internal factors, NEP, policies, intolerance, marginalisation – all due to UMNO either through their action or inaction. They being the largest and decision making entity in ruling coalition since independence are the cause for all the problems. we can argue many things, but it all boils down to them.