Not so 1Malaysia in govt education jobs

The statistics on the civil servants employment in the education sector in the country stinks of racism, according to Hindraf.

GEORGE TOWN: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak should walk his talk by taking immediate steps to balance out the ethnic imbalance in the country’s education sector employment.

According to Hindraf national coordinator W Sambulingam, the Education Ministry’s employment statistics were so “obscene” that people would think that only one ethnic group existed in the country.

“The Prime Minister should reflect his ‘nambikkai’ campaign with Indians by addressing the issue promptly.

“He should have by now announced and implemented measures to resolve the pressing issue in line with his 1Malaysia slogan,” he told FMT here today.

Citing the statistics, Sambulingam said out of 1,445 national secondary school principals in the country, 1,270 or 87.89% are ethnic Malays.

He said ethnic Chinese only make up 149 or 10.31% while ethnic Indians have mere 26 principals or 1.8%.

From the 2,893 officers employed in district education offices across the Peninsula, he said 2,823 or 97.58% were Malays, 43 or 1.49% Chinese and 27 or 0.93% Indians.

At state departments, he said Malays comprised 2,332 or 96.6% from a total of 2,414 education officers. Chinese are 47 or 1.95%, while Indians are 35 or 1.45%.

Given that education was the fundamental foundation of a country, Sambulingam said the statistics clearly indicated non-Malays have been deliberately sidelined from nation-building.

He accused the government of systematically ignoring and isolating non-Malays from the very intellectual foundation of the country.

“If this is not racism a’la Umno, then what do we call it?” he asked.

Statistics tell all

Sambulingan also detailed the statistics of Malays and non-Malays in the government education sector.

He revealed that the Selangor education department had 479 officers, the highest in the country, and of this, 466 or 97.28% were Malays, seven or 1.47% Chinese and six or 1.25% Indians.

In Malacca, out of 405 state education officers, 396 are Malays. There were only seven Chinese and a mere two Indians employed.

In Penang, 211 out of 229 employed are ethnic Malays, followed by Chinese at 14 and Indians four.

Kedah has 226 Malays, four Chinese and two Indians among its 232 state education officers.

Even in the federal capital Kuala Lumpur, of the 206 officers, 200 are Malays with Chinese and Indians at three each.

Other states by ethnic order of Malay-Chinese-Indian were 176:4:4 of 184 in Negeri Sembilan; 203:4:5 of 212 in Perak; 220:2:5 of 227 in Johor; and 234:2:4 of 240 in Pahang

Sambulingan said the situation was the same at district levels.

He said as far as school principals were concerned the situation was no better.

In Johor, of the total of 245 principals, 219 are Malays, 23 Chinese and only three Indians.

‘Racist’ policy

In Selangor of the 228 school heads, 213 are Malays, 12 Chinese and three Indians.

Meanwhile, in Perak of the 218, the Malay, Chinese and Indian ratio stands at 179:33:6.

In Negeri Sembilan, the ratio is 106:9:2 of 117 principals while in Penang of the 125, the respective community representation stands at 93:29:3.

In Pahang, the numbers are 178:12:3 of a total of 193 principals and in Kedah it stands at 145:6:2 of 153.

In the Federal Territory, of the 97 principals, 80 are Malays, 14 Chinese and only three are Indians.

Slamming the BN goverment’s “racist” policy, Sambulingam called on MIC to stop dancing to Umno’s tune by frequently claiming that Indians were fairly recruited into the public sector.

“The statistics have shown Umno is racist.

“Is Umno suggesting that non-Malays are incapable of becoming education officers and headmasters?” he asked.

He reminded that the Barisan Nasional government’s goal was for the country to become a developed nation by 2020.

‘What are your plans, Pakatan’

Sambulingan also aimed his arrows at Pakatan Rakyat, urging the coalition to reveal its blueprint to correct the wrongs.

He asked if Pakatan would, after capturing Putrajaya, make civil service recruitment transparent and give equal chance to all communities to be equally represented.

He said Indians were fed up with the standard routine reply of “Putrajaya first, announce later” because it only indicated Pakatan did not want to address the issue.

“Racial discrimination should stop. We want to know whether Pakatan has serious plans to stop it.

“Or is Pakatan, like BN, manipulating the issue for votes? Hindraf is surely not for it,” said Sambulingam.