"We are real survivors," observes S Muniandy, referring to SJK(T) Ladang Tuan Mee a Tamil primary school situated in an oil palm plantation in Rawang, 80km north of Kuala Lumpur.

The school established in the 1950s is distinctively different from its counterparts in the capital city, which are often better provided for due to political patronage or better financial support from the parents.

Muniandy should know. He has been both a teacher and the first senior assistant at the school for three years and can remember every change in infrastructure since he arrived, only because there have been so few of them.

The most exciting change, he recalls, was when the school was given a free satellite dish and a receiver early last year. It was part of a programme sponsored by Astro, the country's sole satellite television provider, and co-ordinated by district education departments nationwide. Each school was promised a free subscription to channels on education and children's programmes.

The satellite dish has since been installed on the roof of the double-storey building, the most sophisticated gadget the school has ever possessed. To date, though, the students have not been able to watch any of the programmes because the school does not have a television set.

"We have tried very hard to find someone to sponsor a set," says Muniandy.

More urgent priorities

The absence of an ordinary television set, however, pales in comparison to other bigger, everyday problems faced by pupils.

There is no piped water supply to the school it gets treated water from a nearby reservoir managed by the estate. There is no telephone connection either. And pupils cannot enjoy Pendidikan Jasmani (PJ or Physical Education) because there is no field.

Besides, there are more urgent priorities. The school makes use of the PJ periods for extra classes to prepare the students for the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR), a compulsory government examination for Year Six pupils.

The school realises that if it doesn't want its pupils to lag too far behind children in other schools, they would have to double their efforts.

What worries Muniandy and other teachers most is the decline in enrolment in recent years, due to a trend of migration of estate labour to other economic sectors and geographical locations.

Time stands still

The clock seems to have stopped ticking in Tamil primary schools for five decades now, with SJK(T) Ladang Tuan Mee being a simple case in point.

Unlike them, schools using Bahasa Melayu or Mandarin-language as the medium of instruction, particularly in urban areas, have been adding to their infrastructure and recruiting more students.

To gain an insight into the perennial problems of Tamil schools in Malaysia such as poor infrastructure, unavailability of funds and low priority for education within some groups in the Indian Malaysian community a look at their history would be in order.

Demand for Tamil-language education grew as British colonialists recruited labour from South India to work on rubber estates and coffee and tea plantations at the end of the 19th century.

Prior to this, Christian missionaries had provided facilities for basic Tamil-language education, with the first school set up in 1816 at the Penang Free School.

These missionary-run schools did not receive funding from the colonial government and were not well supported by the Indian community itself.

Cause for concern

As the number of estate-based Tamil schools increased, the Labour Ordinance was passed in 1912 to ensure that the government did not have to bear related expenses. (see box)

Estate owners were made responsible for providing facilities and teachers, resulting in ill-equipped decrepit buildings being allocated together with untrained teachers.

After Independence in 1957, Tamil schools were classified as national-type schools and primary education has been provided free of charge to all Malaysian children. This, however, has had minimal impact on the development of Tamil schools which have remained static despite rapidly changing times.

A 1973 official report found that Tamil schools had the highest dropout rate (36.8 percent) and lowest enrolment rate in the country. The lack of progress continues to today, and has become a genuine cause for concern among educationists in particular.

Problems of low enrolment

SJK(T) Ladang Tuan Mee currently has 84 students, which is way below the 150-student requirement set by the Education Ministry. For this, it is duly recorded as 'SKM' or Sekolah Kurang Murid (under-enrolled schools).

Standard Two and Three pupils sit together in one classroom, under the supervision of the same teacher who has to attend to both groups at the same time. Standard Four and Five pupils are accommodated in another classroom.

At least 165 other Tamil primary schools (or 33 percent of about 520) fall in the SKM category and organise their classes just like how the Tuan Mee school does it.

Closure of schools due to external factors has, therefore, become another problem to be addressed. In 1968, there were 670 schools. Since then, many of those located in estates have been quietly closed instead of being relocated when the land was converted for redevelopment projects.

The surviving ones are not doing well, especially the 70 percent classified as government-aided schools under the Education Act 1996. Such schools are entitled to only capital grant for buildings, while the teachers are paid by the Education Ministry.

Tamil schools received RM10,902 (or 1 percent) of total education expenditure under the Eighth Malaysia Plan (1996-2000).

Income-related problems

Like Chinese primary schools, Tamil schools have to find ways of becoming financially self-reliant, to cover development and maintenance costs.

But unlike Chinese schools, which find strong support from within the relatively affluent Chinese Malaysian community, Tamil schools have still not managed to raise much funds from Indian Malaysians.

In the case of SJK(T) Ladang Tuan Mee, the 80 families in the neighbourhood, each with an average of four to seven members, only have a household income of RM600 each.

Muniandy says low family income, coupled with the lack of awareness of the importance of education, lead Tamil school pupils to become potential drop-outs, especially if they have to support their families by taking on part-time jobs.

Many students simply stop coming to school without giving any reason. Teachers only find out about their problems when they visit the parents concerned.

"The parents tell us that their children's uniforms and shoes are worn out, for example. We have had to find sponsors to provide shoes and uniforms to really poor parents, so that their kids can continue to study," Muniandy says.

"There was a bright student in Standard Six, who was about sit for the UPSR. One day she just stopped attending class. I went over to her place and she told me she had to help the family pluck jasmine flowers (for garlands). They needed the money to buy food."

Dictates of reality

Such harsh realities are the main reason why administrators of vernacular schools often question the wisdom of major changes in education policy.

The proposal to change the medium of instruction to English for Science and Mathematics at certain levels of schooling from next year, is one such policy that has raised both eyebrows and objections. A decision is pending on its introduction to vernacular schools.

Disclosure of the move last month has sparked strong objections from key Tamil education groups who fear that pupils may not be able to cope with the language switch.

Several students of SJK(T) Ladang Tuan Mee who were interviewed say they would not mind the language switch because English is their favourite subject.

They also know that fluency in English language will guarantee "a nice future and a good job" even as they continue to communicate their thoughts in Bahasa Melayu during this interview.

Only about 45 percent of Tamil school pupils have passed Bahasa Melayu and English at UPSR level in recent years.

'Solve problems first'

In the eyes of the teachers, past experience and statistics show that the language switch may not be as viable as the Education Ministry thinks.

P Kanniammah ( left ), who teaches Science to Standard Five and Six pupils, says it is impossible to expect students to improve either their command of English or knowledge of science "when there is not even a proper laboratory with sufficient materials" in her school.

She also has a heavy workload, having to regularly translate Science and Mathematics exercise books many of which are published in Bahasa Melayu into Tamil for pupils who can only read and understand their mother tongue.

Muniandy puts the problem in a nutshell: "We are going to kill the students, we will make them hate the two subjects and we would have more difficulty in persuading them to stay in school.

"There are already so many problems in our schools, why don't they solve these problems first? Instead, the government talks about teaching this and that in English, which does not address real problems."

Whether or not the government is prepared to listen to teachers like Muniandy may be a moot point, when the Indian Malaysian community is grappling with larger issues that affect the very existence of Tamil schools.

Part 2 tomorrow will examine the debate over Tamil-language education.