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.