KUALA LUMPUR (May 10, 2012): Given the RM440 million allocation to the Indian community, mainly for the reconstruction of Tamil schools, now is the time for them to move forward in shaping quality students to prepare them as the nation's human capital, to be on par with other Malaysians.

Continuous grumbling on the issue of insufficient school infrastructure and facilities should come to a halt as it would only distract them from the real struggle of contributing to the development on student achievement, according to a community leader.

Over the past three years, the government has allocated RM440 million to fund development programmes and carry out upgrading of Tamil-type national schools since Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak took over as prime minister in 2009.

Tamil Foundation Malaysia president S. Pasupathi said the focus should now be on how best to serve the academic needs of students and look into ‘software’ hampering the development of quality students.

"Our government has spent so much on infrastructure and we cannot go on complaining that it is still lacking. We might not have the five-star schools but with two or three stars, we can move forward to produce quality students," he said in a recent interview with Bernama.

He said Indians needed to move on, from having too much of mother-tongue sentimentalism, and should project Tamil schools as schools of quality education, comparable to national and Chinese schools.

Pasupathi pointed out that the main obstacle faced by Tamil school students was their poor grasp of Bahasa Malaysia, a subject that only some 30 per cent of them could obtain pass mark.

Currently, the subject is taught for 16 hours a month at Tamil schools to improve the students' command of the language and subsequently, reduce the number of students who needed to attend remove classes.

"We believe Bahasa Malaysia must be taught by teachers who are proficient in both Malay and Tamil languages so that communication with students will be easier," he said.

Taking these circumstances into consideration, Najib has come up with a suggestion that a special conference be convened to discuss and formulate a new blueprint for the future of Tamil schools in the country.

The prime minister said issues, including the relevance of remove classes for Tamil schools, the shortage of degree-holding teachers and space constraints needed to be looked into.

To date, there are 524 Tamil schools in the country, comprising 152 fully government-aided and 372 partially aided, with a total enrolment of about 103,000 students. Adding on the issue of quality teachers, Pasupathi said shortage of trained teachers in Tamil Schools had been a perennial problem where only about 20 per cent out of 9,200 were graduate teachers.

"The government could consider setting up a Tamil Teacher Training Institute as a public-private partnership under the National Key Economic Area (NKEA) of Education," he said.

Stressing that the best ratio to aim for, was one teacher for every 30 students, he said the institute should provide both pre and in-service teacher training as per the ministry's requirements.

However, he pointed out that having sufficient teachers alone was akin to merely 'half the battle won', without stringent monitoring of their quality and suggested that the ministry carry out some form of monitoring.

Pasupathy said, in efforts to provide more rooms for SJKT, the government had recently, agreed to build more Tamil schools, three in Selangor and one each in Johor and Kedah.

One of the new Tamil schools in Selangor will be located in Taman Mahkota Cheras.

The constant efforts taken by the government since 2009, had actually brought noticeable successes in Tamil schools, with 15 schools scoring 100 per cent passes in the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) between 2010 and 2011.

Among the excellent schools are from Johor (five), Selangor (four), Perak (three), Kedah (one) and one each in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Negeri Sembilan.

"Now that good and conducive environment has led to positive performance of students, let's move forward to enhance the quality of Tamil education to be on par with other national and Chinese medium schools," he said.

Pasupathy urged all Indian non-governmental organisations and foundations to work together in helping to enhance the standard of Tamil schools so that future Indian generations could contribute more to the country. – Bernama