Kamalanathan gets earful from MIC treasurer

MIC treasurer Jaspal Singh lashed out at fellow party comrade P Kamalanathan, the deputy education minister, over the poor intake of Indian students in public universities this year.

"This discrimination against minorities must stop. The majority of Indians in Malaysia are poor. They sacrifice and go without to educate their children. And they are voters who heeded the prime minister's exhortation to have 'nambikei' (trust) in him.

"Sadly, even Kamalanathan, the deputy education minister, is a part of this deceitful trickery, issuing yesterday the hypocritical statement that matriculation is for all races.

"Kamalanathan would do well to remember that he is there as the representative of MIC and the Indian community, not to cover up for the Education Ministry," he said in a statement today.

Jaspal pointed out that Indian Malaysian students only made up of around 1,800 or a "miserable" four percent of the total 41,573 intake in public universities.

"Why is the intake of Indian Malaysian students only 1,800 this year? With the additional matriculation places, 3,000 Indians should have been given places in public universities.

"The MIC fought to increase the number of seats (for Indian students) from 300 to 1,500. This undertaking was given by the prime minister.

"Yet the Education Ministry appears to be playing a shell game with this intake, issuing different numbers at different times, committing to meeting the number but not actually doing so," he said.

‘No to top-scorers'
Worst, Jaspal said several students who achieved a perfect score of 4.0 in the Malaysian Higher School Certificate (STPM) were denied the course of their choice.

"I received a call from a Baldev Singh, a staff in Royal Malaysian Police, whose daughter, Armeetaa Kaur, had been offered psychology instead of her choice of dentistry. Despite his meagre salary, Baldev ensured that his daughter had all that she needed to do well in her studies.

"The joy that his family felt when their daughter received a 4.0 for her matriculation is now gone. They cannot afford to send their daughter to a private university," he said.

He added that to date, MIC's Higher Education Bureau had received complaints from 10 students with perfect scores who were not given the course of their choice.

"I call on the prime minister to immediately review this year's public university intake, and to ensure that the brightest and the best of our students are accepted into the courses of their choice," he said.