Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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Tamil School Teachers Union ask more places

September 29th, 2008
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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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YSS Plus 8 programme

September 22nd, 2008
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From the NST:

KUALA LUMPUR: An MIC effort to help academically-weak and problematic Indian secondary students has paid off.

The MIC-run Yayasan Strategic Social’s family development unit head K.A. Gunah said the party’s Plus-8 programme had proven to be a resounding success by helping 5,100 students in 74 secondary schools.

He said thanks to the year-long programme which ended in July, these students had a better future now and did not need to go the way of some other children from the community who could not escape the clutches of social ills such as crime.

He said the key to the programme’s success was in its ability to bring children and parents together to work as a family unit and motivate the children to improve themselves.

“Besides ironing out students’ problems, which were mainly centred around poor parent-child relationships, the programme has put in place an effective network for the students, their teachers and YSS.”

Funded by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry and supported by the Education Ministry, the programme featured workshops on character building, human values and uncovering of skills for students.

“We then hold two workshops for parents on the subject of parent-child interaction and relationships and the need for self-discipline and sacrifice. The programme ends with a two-day, one-night camp for the students and their parents.

“We are now keying in the student data and feedback on the programme to prepare a report for the two ministries. With this done, we hope to launch the second round of Plus-8 programmes.”

Gunah, who is the coordinator for the programme in Johor and Malacca, said YSS ran them jointly with Indian-based NGOs.

YSS got the help of teachers to identify target groups of 50 students in schools in eight states to attend a total of 812 Plus-8 programmes.

He said the programme was the brainchild of party president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, who felt that rising social ills among Indian youth had to be nipped in the bud by solving the problem of delinquency.

During the programme, Gunah said he came across sad cases of how students had got into trouble because of parental neglect.

“A boy who had been punished 22 times in 10 months for disciplinary problems, including bringing pornographic VCDs to school, told us his father had left the family.

“His mother was away at work until late at night and he had to fend for himself, including cooking and washing his own clothes.”

He said the girls were often led astray by youths or men outside the school environment.

“Most of them point to nagging mothers and absent fathers and the fact that there was no one to listen to them.”

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MIYC says Education Dept not supporting them

September 15th, 2008
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MIYC have complained that Education Department are not supporting them in their programmes to reduce crime and gangsterism among youths. Not sure what Samy Vellu said about it. Maybe MIYC is not using the correct channel.

The Malaysian Indian Youth Council has claimed that the education department has not been receptive to its programme to fight crime and gangsterism among youths.“It is ironic that we want to help solve the problem of gangsterism in schools and we are not allowed to do so by the education department,” said its president A. Rajaretnam.

“The Youth and Sports Ministry and the Education Ministry must work together in fighting the problem.“If they do not find a common platform to eliminate the problem, then our society is headed for a bleak future,” Rajaretnam said before the opening of the council’s annual general meeting.

He said the council had presented a paper, A Crime Free Society of Youths to the Sports Ministry but there had been no response.“We are serious in wiping out the problem in schools, colleges and universities but unfortunately we are not given access to help,” he said, adding that whenever the council asked for funds, only a small amount would be given,

MIC president Datuk Seri S.Samy Vellu, who attended the AGM, urged youth organisations to apply to the relevant ministries armed with proposals that would help the youths in developing their skills, entrepreneurship and leadership qualities.

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RM1 quit rent for schools in Negeri Sembilan

September 11th, 2008
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Good news announced by the BN-led Negeri Sembilan state which is similar to Perak and Selangor (and Penang and Kedah too? – need to check). It seems that the step was taken earlier, but only recently announced by the Chief Minister.

All government schools in the state will pay a nominal sum of RM1 in quit rent and a RM1,000 one-off premium.

These rates are much lower compared to what some schools, especially larger ones, have paid in the past.

All the schools have to do to qualify is to apply to the Land and District office in their area. This includes government religious schools and vernacular schools.

“The yearly quit rent for these schools were high, depending on the size of the school and location. That is why it was decided that we impose a nominal rate of RM1 across the board,” said Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan after chairing the State Executive Council meeting at Wisma Negeri.

This is to reduce the costs incurred by the school management, he said after contributing RM100,000 to the state Malaysian Chinese Association Hall chairman Lau Chee Boon at his office yesterday.

“The state government wants to see these schools properly managed without being burdened by a high quit rent. We hope the schools will concentrate on providing quality education,” he said.

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Samy Vellu and MIC took land meant for Tamil School

September 5th, 2008
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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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