Compiled by GERARD GIMINO, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN
PARENTS of students at a Kuala Kubu Baru secondary school in Selangor are upset after the school failed to organise Tamil language classes despite having more than 200 Indian students, Malaysia Nanban reported.
Parents who spoke to the daily said SMK Dato’ Haji Kamaruddin in KKB has more than enough students from Form One to Form Five to meet the Education Ministry’s guidelines for Tamil classes.
However, since the school year began in March, the school management has failed to appoint a teacher to conduct the lessons.
The school’s Parent Teacher Association has apparently stepped in to help bring in an external tutor, the parents said.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim made a promise at the 11th World Tamil Research Conference in Kuala Lumpur last year that even schools with just 10 Indian students would be able to hold Tamil classes.
Despite this, the school principal, the district and state education departments, and the Tamil programme coordinator at the education department had overlooked the 200 Indian students and failed to appoint a teacher.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.