MIC president S Samy Vellu has appealed to the prime minister to intervene in resolving the impasse over the Indian community's request to allow Indians students to take a maximum of 12 SPM subjects instead of 10.

He said the time has come for Najib Abdul Razak to intervene to ensure that Indian students were allowed to take the two additional subjects, namely Tamil Language and Tamil Literature along with the 10 other subjects in the SPM.

samy vellu exclusive on tamil schools 080708 06 "I fear that this issue will lead to more problems and a backlash to the Barisan Nasional (government) from the Indian community," he said in a statement today.

The Education Ministry had announced last June that students would be allowed a maximum of 10 subjects only in the SPM from next year.

This move caused an uproar among MIC and the Indian community as it would exclude students from taking the Tamil Language and Tamil Literature subjects although they could drop one of the 10 subjects to take up either one of the two Tamil subjects.

"Students can drop the Moral subject and take up one of the two Tamil subjects but the Education Ministry has stressed that Moral is an important subject.

"So, what do we do? The only way out is to allow the students to take 12 subjects," he said, adding that Tamil was a "life and death" matter for the Indians.

'I felt flabbergasted'

Samy Vellu said he had instructed MIC’s sole member in the Cabinet, Dr S Subramaniam to resolve the issue with the Education Ministry and to even bring it up in the Cabinet.

He said the human resources minister was still trying his level best to resolve the matter but “I feel it is time for the prime minister to get involved under the 1Malaysia concept”.

Samy Vellu said he was not in the country for the past one week and during his absence, the Education Ministry had decided that there would be no change in its 10 SPM subject ruling.

"I felt flabbergasted by the decision and upon my return, discussed the issue with Subramaniam and decided to appeal to the prime minister to intervene," he said.

He said the Indian community has voiced their displeasure over the ministry's decision and many Indian non-governmental organisations have sought the MIC’s help.