Key Tamil groups in the country said today that the MIC does not represent the entire Indian Malaysian community and are asking the government to also listen to their views on the proposal to teach Mathematics and Science in English.

They will collect signatures from parent-teacher associations of over 500 Tamil primary schools nationwide and submit a petition to the government to implore for their voice to be heard.

President of Malaysian Tamil Dravidian Association RS Muthiah said his organisation, the oldest Tamil group in the country, set up in 1946, could not accept MIC chief S Samy Vellu's claim that Tamil schools will drift into oblivion if they do not accept the language switch.

"MIC said it speaks of behalf of the Indian community [on this issue] but that is not true. We have other Indian-based political parties as well. He (Samy) is not the right person to talk about the subject," he said.

However, Muthiah added that the other Indian-based parties in the ruling coalition "are just like MIC" and will not oppose the government when the community is at odds with the government over policy change.

He also reminded the government that education "is not a game" and that the views of parents, especially the low-income group which makes up the larger segment of the Indian community, should be taken into consideration as well.

One school's failure

Malaysian Indian Youth Council president A Rajaretnam said the signature campaign was an "immediate response" to the education minister's statement yesterday that the government will proceed with implementing the new policy.

"The worries of the Indian community and the reasons we give in rejecting the switch were simply ignored," he said.

He cited the case of SJK(T) Ladang Kerilla Tanah Merah, a Tamil school in Kelantan which switched its teaching medium to Bahasa Melayu in 1975 and has since produced poor examination results.

Only one student made it to university over the last three decades compared with an average of three every year previously, he said.

He added that before the switch, over 55 percent of the students passed all subjects in their government examinations every year; after that, only one student managed to obtain a 100 percent pass, in 1983.

"This shows that it is not right for the government to assume that after some time all students will definitely be able to cope with the language switch," he said.

Another Tamil group involved in the signature campaign, Malaysian Nevi Alagam, said the petition was necessary to highlight the plight of Tamil school parents and teachers to the government.

"MIC is not ready to speak up for the Indian community though many of us feel strongly about the switch. So now we have to do it ourselves and show the government how the people feel about the proposal," said group president M Thiru.

The groups expect to gather at least 300 signatures from concerned PTAs and another 200,000 signatures from the parents for the petition.

Strong objections

Indian Malaysians comprise one-tenth of the country's 21.8 million population, making it the third largest ethnic group after Malay and Chinese Malaysians which constitute under half and one-third respectively.

According to the year 2000 statistics published by the MIC education bureau, 77.3 percent of parents of Tamil schools earn less than RM700.

The Tamil groups fear that the change will cause an increase in the number of drop-outs and at the same time affect the performance of the students in Science and Mathematics.

The proposal also met with strong objections from Chinese educationists who argued that the idea was not practical and will instead alter the characteristics of vernacular primary schools.

But Education Minister Musa Mohamed said yesterday that the government will proceed with the implementation of the proposal which was first announced last month, with or without the consent of Barisan Nasional component parties.