Posts Tagged ‘Tamil school’

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Minnal FM interview with Senator Murugiah

August 2nd, 2008
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I managed to hear about 20 minutes of the recorded interview of Senator T.Murugiah (PPP) who is a Deputy Minister in Prime Minister’s Department. It was between 2 and 3pm on Minnal FM.

His interview was very candid and off the cuff. I’ve can’t remember other previous interviewees in the slot (like Saravanan and S.Subramaniam) talking like that.

Among the things he said:

1. He managed to settle SJKT Ladang Kulai Besar’s land title issue in just 6 days. The PIBG chairman called to thank him. It was dangling without solution for last 10 years.

2. He is in-charge of 5 departments under Prime Minister’s Department. Among them is the Biro Pengaduan Awam (Public Complaints Bureau) or BPA. He said all problems will receive personal attention from him. He urged Indians to put forth their complaints on about any public service problems to the agency. He said so far, after a publicity to the Indian community, most complaints that came in are on Tamil schools. He said PM personally told him to improve the BPA. BPA is at http://www.bpa.jpm.my and the public can contact them via telephone, letter, fax, and email.

3. He said not many Indian applicants for government jobs. He asked all candidates to forward a copy to him personally (to his office) so that he can track the application with SPA. He said many candidates don’t turn up for interview or are unprepared. He is planning to create a briefing team to help candidates to prepare for interview.

4. He touched on Tamil School Foundation initiative that he started. He said we should be more like the Chinese community who are using funds to support their schools. He said that if one person contributed RM10, it will be in millions since there are more than a million Indians. The money can be used for extra classes, study trips for students, seminars, and even support those who have financial problem via scholarships. He said Tamil schools are the soul of the community and it is very important to maintain the schools. He said more people should send their children to Tamil schools.

5. He said he is not after name and fame. Those who cheat others and live on others suffering won’t be happy. He said he don’t even own a house after being taken away from him (not sure what that means).

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SJKT Azad land allocation cancelled by municipal council

July 30th, 2008
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The report in Nanban, carried by the Star says the Penang Municipal Council retracted the land it once allocated to the SJKT Azad Tamil school in Bagan Jermal, Penang. This retraction was done after the general elections, while the allocation date was not mentioned. We can safely assume that it was before elections.

Here’s the flow of events:

The school, which began operating in 1946, is presently “squatting” at the Penang Indian Association building and had submitted numerous applications to the state government for allocation of land so that new premises with proper facilities could be built. The school does not have enough classrooms. There is also no computer laboratory, science laboratory and library.

Previous government under chief minister Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon and former state executive councillor P.K. Subbaiyah had approved the land near a Hindu temple in the Waterfall area that was identified by the school parent-teacher association in 2005.

The Penang Municipal Council, which owns the land, had also approved the allocation for the school.

MIC president and former Works minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu had also obtained the necessary funds amounting to RM750,000 from the Federal Government to build the new school.

The Penang Municipal Council cancelled the land allocated to the school after the recent general election.

So, what happened?

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Don’t merge schools says Tamil Youth Bell Club

July 30th, 2008
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The call was made by National Council of Tamil Youth Bell Club president P. Ponniah, who urged the Education Ministry not to deregister schools with 50 or fewer children.

He said many estate Tamil schools had fewer than 50 children per school and should be allowed to continue and not merged.

He said the schools’ management should open the schools to families in nearby new housing estates. He said that at present many parents were forced to send their children to national schools, as there were no Tamil schools nearby and also because of the transportation problems.

He urged political parties to hold talks with the Ministry in opening new Tamil schools in housing estates with Indian majority. He said this would ensure that the number of Tamil schools in this country would not be reduced.

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Samy disagrees on community support for Tamil schools

July 26th, 2008
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MIBA president Sivakumar started the provocation by saying that:

If not for private donors and wealthy businessmen from the community, Sivakumar argues, half of the 523 Tamil schools in the country would have been closed down a long time ago. He cites a recent example where a hall for a Yahya Awal in Johor Baru, costing RM700,000, was built with public donations.

This made Samy Vellu quite unhappy obviously.

MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu has challenged the claim that half the Tamil schools in the country would have closed down without the support of wealthy Indians.
He was reacting to Malaysian Indian Businessmen Association president P. Sivakumar’s claim that if not for private donations and wealthy businessmen, half of the 523 schools would have closed down a long time ago.

“The subject of Tamil schools is very dear to me because I was a Tamil school student. Since I became a minister in 1979, I started studying the position of Tamil schools. In 1981, I came out with the first programmes for educational empowerment of the Indian community. I asked JKR (Public Works Department) and my officers to study schools that needed attention.”

“I then approached then prime minister (Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad) in 1984 for RM5.5 million from the Prime Minster’s Fund. At that time there was scarce funds for partially-aided schools. He approved RM6 million and we built nine Tamil schools with the money.”

Later, Samy Vellu said, he approached then finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin for funds and received RM4.5 million to build more schools. He said MIC was committed to continuously seek funds from the prime minister, education and finance ministers to keep on building Tamil schools to provide a better standard of education for Indian children.

“Recently, we secured a RM30 million grant and we have allocated RM11.3 million for building 10 schools in Selangor and 15 in the rest of the country, also costing RM11.3 million. Tenders are now being called. We have also obtained RM2 million for repairs of Tamil schools in Selangor this year while the government is building a RM1.2 million Tamil school in Kampung Lindungan on a 0.6ha site. The Education Ministry is also building 15 fully-aided Tamil schools costing RM11.5 million.”

From now until the end of next year, RM43.5 million has been committed for the upgrading and construction of Tamil schools, he said.

“For me, MIC is the guardian of Tamil schools and we have set up the MIED (Maju Institute of Educational Development), Yayasan Strategik Sosial to improve the lot of Indian children.”

He pointed out that it was through MIC initiatives that on July 1, the Cabinet Committee on Development of the Indian Community chaired by the deputy prime minister had agreed in principle that all Tamil schools should be converted to fully-aided schools.

I calculated RM98.7 million based on the numbers mentioned by Samy Vellu. Since 1984 till 2009 (26 years). That’s about RM3.796 million per year. Number of Tamil schools is 523.

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Government consider converting Tamil schools status if land issue settled

July 26th, 2008
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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.

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