DO YOU KNOW Tamil schools have less than 20% of teachers qualified to teach the various subjects…
P. Waythamoorthy (Hindu Rights Action Front – Hindraf — chairman) says that Tamil schools should be helped and it should be part of PR’s Common Policy Framework (CPF). The key question should be — HOW? We really should even look further.
TAMIL SCHOOLS — Is this the best we can provide Disadvantaged Indian Malaysian children, where even the ones from Tamil schools who excel in UPSR struggle in Form One because of their lack of fluency in Malay and English?
DO YOU KNOW More than 60% of Tamil schoolchildren fail the UPSR…
“GIVING” the community $50 billion ringgit will be the last nail in the coffin: it will be a variation of the Dutch Curse/Disease. Indeed, teach a man to fish….
Building new schools and even repairing existing ones will do nothing for the standard of education in Tamil schools. It is NOT even going to improve the pass rate in UPSR. Has anyone really looked into why the standard of education, which is somewhat reflected in the public exam results, so bad?
I have never heard anything about the state of the teaching and administration of these schools , neither have I heard about the large number of failures.
The exam results are a closely guarded secret. Nobody will give you this information; what you will hear every year are the “larger” number of students who got 7As ( read — most parents who can afford it, send their children for unending tuition classes).
Majority of the students who have been to Tamil schools are UNEMPLOYABLE. That is one of the reasons why there are so many Indian youth who are unemployed. It is NOT their (children’s) fault; we have failed them.
The most saddening thing is that the “political imperative” is so strong that even the PR government in Selangor goes around promising to build new and better Tamil schools, spruce up old ones — (but there is ) no talk about what are the real problems, how to improve the teaching, the administration, the setting up of proper pre-schools or whatever.
‘SCHOOLS of FAILURE‘
Are the BN and PR politicians ignorant? Is the lobby of the Tamil school teachers and administrators so strong? Why is the paramount aim — the interest of these children — not being taken into consideration while these politicians keep on clamouring for more of these “schools of failure”?
Don’t they know — do they want to know — that the 523 Tamil schools in the country have less 20% of the required (trained/ qualified) teachers to teach Bahasa Malaysia, English and, Science and Maths in English?
There are numerous problems with Tamil schools and the children who attend these schools. These include, in order of priority:
i) Lack of qualified teachers – LESS than 20% of the teachers teaching in B. Malaysia or English in Tamil schools are trained (qualified) to teach in Malay or English. It is important to note that 5 out of the 7 UPSR subjects taught in Tamil schools are in B. Malaysia and English.
P. Waythamoorthy (Hindu Rights Action Front – Hindraf — chairman) says that Tamil schools should be helped and it should be part of PR’s Common Policy Framework (CPF). The key question should be — HOW? We really should even look further.
TAMIL SCHOOLS — Is this the best we can provide Disadvantaged Indian Malaysian children, where even the ones from Tamil schools who excel in UPSR struggle in Form One because of their lack of fluency in Malay and English?
DO YOU KNOW More than 60% of Tamil schoolchildren fail the UPSR…
“GIVING” the community $50 billion ringgit will be the last nail in the coffin: it will be a variation of the Dutch Curse/Disease. Indeed, teach a man to fish….
Building new schools and even repairing existing ones will do nothing for the standard of education in Tamil schools. It is NOT even going to improve the pass rate in UPSR. Has anyone really looked into why the standard of education, which is somewhat reflected in the public exam results, so bad?
I have never heard anything about the state of the teaching and administration of these schools , neither have I heard about the large number of failures.
The exam results are a closely guarded secret. Nobody will give you this information; what you will hear every year are the “larger” number of students who got 7As ( read — most parents who can afford it, send their children for unending tuition classes).
Majority of the students who have been to Tamil schools are UNEMPLOYABLE. That is one of the reasons why there are so many Indian youth who are unemployed. It is NOT their (children’s) fault; we have failed them.
The most saddening thing is that the “political imperative” is so strong that even the PR government in Selangor goes around promising to build new and better Tamil schools, spruce up old ones — (but there is ) no talk about what are the real problems, how to improve the teaching, the administration, the setting up of proper pre-schools or whatever.
‘SCHOOLS of FAILURE‘
Are the BN and PR politicians ignorant? Is the lobby of the Tamil school teachers and administrators so strong? Why is the paramount aim — the interest of these children — not being taken into consideration while these politicians keep on clamouring for more of these “schools of failure”?
Don’t they know — do they want to know — that the 523 Tamil schools in the country have less 20% of the required (trained/ qualified) teachers to teach Bahasa Malaysia, English and, Science and Maths in English?
There are numerous problems with Tamil schools and the children who attend these schools. These include, in order of priority:
i) Lack of qualified teachers – LESS than 20% of the teachers teaching in B. Malaysia or English in Tamil schools are trained (qualified) to teach in Malay or English. It is important to note that 5 out of the 7 UPSR subjects taught in Tamil schools are in B. Malaysia and English.
ii) Lack of good results-oriented Administrators
iii) Lack of good pre-school education for the children — more than 50% don’t attend pre-school.
iv) Lack of a working knowledge of B. Malaysia and English when most of these students enrol in Standard One.
v) Political interference in the running of these schools
vi) Lack of proper facilities and teachers for IT
vii) Inadequate infrastructure
About 70% of the Indians lived in estates/rural areas (even as recently as the 1960s). When a senior English administrator in Malaya said in dispatches in the early 20th Century, “the Crown should support Tamil schools to get better rubber tappers”, the poor quality of education in Tamil schools was better than no schools at all.
Today more 70% of Indians live in Urban areas and many of them in crowded slums — there are no “rubber trees to tap” after a Tamil school education. The high delinquency among Indian youth is due to the struggle of the last two generations of rural/urban Indian Malaysian migrants to cope with a new fast paced environment of the cities.
Their inability to provide for themselves and their families. Their inability to get jobs. Their battered self esteem. One can see a parallel among the Malay rural/urban migrants also (Mat Rempit / Drug Addicts /etc.)
So unless the political leaders wake up and face the real problems head on and find solutions, regardless of the lobbies and regardless of the short term political consequences, Tamil schools are NOT the best solution for the Indian (Malaysian) Dilemma.
14/11/09
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