Education director-general Alimuddin Mohd Dom has been told to resign over his failure to find an amicable solution to the '10 subject' Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination controversy.

kampung buah pala penang p ramasamy meeting 120609 04 Penang Deputy Chief Minister 2 P Ramasamy slammed Alimuddin for suggesting the 'bizarre' idea for schools to draw up their own vernacular language examinations to overcome the hindrance to students caused by the 10-subject SPM cap.

Yesterday, Alimuddin said schools can conduct their own examinations on respective vernacular language subjects and issue certificates to the students to acknowledge their level of proficiency.

Commenting on this, Ramasamy said: "He is not listening to the people's views and opinions."

"He is trying to bulldoze an examination policy that would kill vernacular subjects from the country’s schooling system.

"He is incompetent and insensitive over the education needs of all Malaysians. He is not fit to head such an important portfolio," he told reporters at the Penang state assembly.

Ramasamy plans to table a motion at the ongoing assembly sitting to pass a resolution calling on the federal government to scrap the 10-subject cap and increase it to minimum 12-subject cap.

He said only a minimum 12-subject cap would enable Indian and Chinese students to sit for their vernacular language and literature subjects for SPM.

Create shortage of teachers

He said the 10-subject grand plan would first discourage students from taking up their mother tongue subjects at the secondary and tertiary levels, which ultimately would create a severe shortage of teachers in vernacular schools.

Eventually, he said vernacular schools, including 534 existing Tamil schools, would have to close down due to dearth of teachers.

"The 10-subject magical formula is damaging to the Indian and Chinese communities. It's an Umno grand plan to banish Tamil and Mandarin in the country," added the former university lecturer.

Over the last 10 years, he said students taking up Tamil language and literature subjects for SPM have gone up, from 340 in 1998 to 4,391 in 2008.

"It shows the interests of students to learn their own mother tongue has gone up," he said.

More than 20 national Indian non-government organisations (NGOs) have already planned to stage a protest on Dec 12 at the Wisma Peladang in Petaling Jaya against the ministry's attempt to introduce the 10-subject SPM formula.

Ramasamy welcomed the rally and hinted he would take part in it.

"Indians definitely need to hold a major protest against this infringement of our language rights," he said.

In mid-June this year, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said all students would be able to take a maximum of only 10 subjects in the examination.

Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, said the six core subjects in the SPM - Bahasa Melayu, English, Islamic Education or Moral Studies, History, Mathematics and Science - would remain the same.

The only exception would be students in the joint science and religious stream who will be allowed to take 11 subjects next year until the curriculum is streamlined by 2011, after which they too would take a maximum of 10 subjects.

In another development, MIC Youth today submitted a memorandum to Muhyiddin to urge him to relax the 10-subject limit.