Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the federal government has never neglected vernacular schools, stressing that its annual budget for vernacular was on par with national schools.

"On average, RM2.235 million is allocated to each Chinese school annually, while each Tamil school receives RM1.99 million.

"A national school, on average, gets RM2.262 million annually. If you compare the allocations, there is not much difference," he said this morning, reported Star Online .

Muhyiddin, who is also the deputy prime minister, meant that a total of RM2.89 billion was allocated to Chinese schools annually, while the figure was RM1.04 billion for Tamil schools.

"So we have spent nearly RM4bil on vernacular schools. Most of it goes to paying the salaries of teachers," he said.

He said that while national schools were given priority in policy-making, the figures prove that Chinese and Tamil schools were “never treated differently”.

Muhyiddin was speaking to about 500 Chinese and Tamil school teachers at Shah Alam today, at a programme attended by top BN leaders, including Selangor BN deputy chief Noh Omar, Selangor MCA chief Donald Lim, Selangor BN coordinator Mohd Zin Mohamed and PPP president M Kayveas.

Meanwhile, Muhyiddin said that vernacular schools were not the only ones facing infrastructure problems.

"We did an audit and found 600 schools in very bad state. Many vernacular schools are in better shape, especially compared to rural schools," he said.