KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian government panel tasked with developing Tamil language schools in the country said they have proposed four areas to focus on over the next decade. It comes as the government is concerned that Tamil education is pushing young students outside the cultural norms of the country by not learning Malay and being unable to integrate into society as they grow older. But the panel believes that by developing the infrastructure, the quality of teaching and learning, achievement standards and the boosting of co-curricular activities, Tamil education can become an integral part of Malaysian society. Tamil Schools Blueprint Panel head Professor N.S. Rajendran, a lecturer at Sultan Idris University of Education (UPSI) and his team have one year to establish an action plan on the “comprehensive development of the 524 schools,” following up on a suggestion by Prime Minister Najib Razak for the blueprint. The panel was set up under the Prime Minister's Department in May and is fully funded by it. “We have four researchers for this project. At the same time, all parties such as foundations, school authorities, and community and non-governmental organisations should also help us to look into the bigger picture to solve the issues,” Rajendran told Bernama news agency in an interview published on Friday. He said the researchers would visit schools to make a comprehensive evaluation of the facilities because many of the schools were in dire need of facilities and assistance. “I have visited schools such as SJKT Batang Kali, SJKT Jasin and SJKT Alor Gajah where issues like the quality of teaching and learning, support systems, status of the schools and community support have been identified,” he said. He argued that the problems would take time to be solved as the issues need to be addressed and revised as a whole for better results in years to come. “We hope to eventually solve all problems once this blueprint is approved by the government and put into immediate action,” he said. Rajendran also said that he “would be working to get the full support of the Indian community on resolving the issue of conversion of partially-aided Tamil schools into fully-aided ones. “It's true that there are also a lot of requests from the community but at the same time there are some sectors of the community which are not in favour of giving up their hold on the schools, even for their betterment,” he said.
