The Penang Pakatan Rakyat Youth wings will launch a signature campaign on Saturday to lobby Putrajaya to approve an application to build the first Tamil secondary school in the state.

PKR state Youth vice-chairman Kumaresan Arumugam (right) said the target is to obtain 10,000 signatures.

"We will run programmes to make people aware of how important it is to have the school," he told a press conference today.

"Every year, students from Tamil primary schools perform well in the UPSR examination. Last year, 105 students obtained 5As.”

State DAP Socialist Youth chief Ng Wei Aik, PAS Penang supporters club chairperson P Asogan and PAS state national unity bureau chief. Mohd Yusof Mohd Noor were also present.

Although three letters were set to Putrajaya, Education director Khair Mohamed Yusof rejected the application in a letter dated Jan 8.

Khair said that there is no provision under the Education Act 1996 for such an application.

The Penang government had applied to build the school in Bagan Dalam, Butterworth, to cater for some 6,000 students from the 28 Tamil primary schools. These are currently allocated an annual budget of RM1.75 million by the state government.

"We are very disappointed with Putrajaya's excuse. The federal government should set aside political differences and consider the proposal as education is an important matter," Kumaresan said.

He challenged Kamalanathan (left) to stop his "theaterics" and show proof of Tamil schools receiving RM100 million each as declared by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on Feb 15.

Najib had said this after Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia chairperson P Waythamoorthy quit his deputy minister’s post earlier this month, citing the government’s unfulfilled pledges to the Indian Malaysian community.

Ng pointed out that the Education Act had come into force in 1996 when Najib was education minister.

"Now that he is prime minister, we hope he can make an exception and consider our application," he said.

"Also, we have two Indian Malaysian ministers - G Palanieval and S Subramaniam - in the cabinet. They are senior ministers and are powerful enough to help the need for Tamil education. Mother-tongue education is our right after all.”

Last week, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng had said he would pursue the issue with Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.