(Parliament, Saturday): Deputy Education minister Noh Omar in his reply to my question on Wednesday said NO new Chinese or Tamil primary schools will be build under the 9^th Malaysia Plan.

This is a blatant and flagrant injustice to the increasing number of parents who want to send their children to Chinese and Tamil primary schools but who face massive problems because classrooms are over crowded and lack of schools in their respective areas.

The government’s plan to strengthen national schools to be the school of choice of Malaysian parents must not be implemented at the expanse of growth of vernacular schools.

The education condition will worsen if the government persists with this nonsensical “no new schools” policy.

The right to education is a constitutional guarantee and the government is duty bound to build vernacular the parent’s desire that is vernacular schools to satisfy the growing demand for vernacular education.

Refusing to build any new Chinese and Tamil primary schools for the next five years despite the urgent and pressing need will only create new injustices and aggravate existing injustices.

Without government patronage vernacular education will suffer from neglect, discrimination and marginalization.

During Independence in 1957, there were 1,333 Chinese primary schools with a total enrolment of 310,000 students.

Now 50 years later Chinese primary school enrolment has more than doubled to 636,124, which should have been accompanied by the doubling of the number of Chinese primary schools.

Instead, there was a decrease of 45 schools from 1,333 to 1,288 Chinese primary schools in the past half-century.

Tamil school student population is also on the rise indicating preferences of the parents.

Tamil schools accepted about 87,710 students in 2002, 90,127 students in 2003 and 95,219 students in 2004 and over 100,000 in 2005.

Out of the 524 Tamil schools only 152 are fully aided, and receive an annual grant to cover expenditure. The other Tamil schools, are literally left to fan it’s own destiny which are all in dire need of proper infrasture.

The performance of students in Tamil schools has also improved tremendous as the statistics below shows:

# in 1993, there were only 18.0% of the Tamil school students had passed in the Malay language writing paper and comprehension paper. More passes in both Malay papers have been recorded in 2003 where 57.6% of the year six students have passed in Malay language (Writing) and 60.0% in Malay language (Comprehension).

# It can be concluded that there were 39.0% increase in passes for Malay language (Writing) and 42% increase for Malay language (comprehension) from 1993 to 2003 among Tamil school students.

# Tamils school students also had recorded higher passes in other subjects from 1993 to 2003. In 1993, only 40.0% of the UPSR candidates had passed in English. This figure went up to 61.2% in 2003. It showed that 21.1% increase in passes in English from 1993 to 2003.

# There has been an increase in the number of passes in Mathematics over the past 10 years. Tamil school students have been performing well in Mathematics since 1993. In 2003, 85.8% of the Tamil school candidates passed in Mathematics compared to only 44.0% pass in 1993.

This drastic change indicates that Tamil school students have more interest and skills in Mathematics compared to other subjects.

Tamil school students also had shown greater interest in Science. Unlike other subjects, Science had been introduced as an examination paper in 1997. Since then Tamil school students have been doing well in Science. In 2003, 78.8% of the candidates passed in Science compared to 69.2% pass in 1997.

As Tamil has been the medium of instruction in Tamil schools, the students have been performing well in their mother tongue as well. Every year more than 60.0% of the students have passed in two Tamil language papers. In 2003, 78.0% and 85.6% passes had been recorded in Tamil language (Writing) and Tamil language (Comprehension) papers respectively compared to 62.0% passes in both papers in 1993.

But despite the overcrowding and better performance in vernacular schools, the government refuses to build more new Chinese and Tamil schools.

There is now the phenomenon of many new national primary schools with empty classrooms and surplus desks/chairs while vernacular primary schools in highly-populated areas are crammed with student-per-class ratio almost double the Education Ministry's ideal ratio of 30 pupils per class - having 55 pupils or more per class, which would have justified e more classes and new schools to be built.

During the winding-up of the Ninth Malaysia Plan the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had specifically made two promises with regard to Chinese and Tamil primary schools: firstly, that new schools would be built according to need and secondly, that the government would act in accordance with the concept of justice.

Both these assurances by the Prime Minister have been violated when Noh Omar revealed on Wednesday that there would be no new Chinese or Tamil primary schools under the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

It is shocking that not a single MCA, Gerakan,MIC and or SUPP MPs protested when Noh made the revelation in Parliament.

At least 100 new Chinese and 40 new Tamil primary schools must be built under each five-year Malaysia Plan to accommodate the needs of the Chinese and Tamil student populations.

The government must understand the people’s need for education and provide fair treatment to all schools.

(23/09/2006)