The government’s plan to build only five secondary schools in 2023 with an inflated allocation of RM430 million can be halved with prudent spending and plugging the leakages, said Tamil Forum Malaysia president K Arumugam.
“The average cost of RM83 million per school is a huge amount to build one secondary school.
“The cost can be halved if there was prudent spending and leakages were plugged,” he said.
Arumugam attributed his concern over the low number of new schools to population growth and the intention to reduce the number of students in each class.
He pointed out that there was no specific funding for the maintenance of Tamil schools under Budget 2023, only a collective allocation for all schools set at RM1.1 billion.
He also viewed the RM15.1 billion for higher education as a “biased” allocation.
Arumugam explained the higher education allocation would largely benefit bumiputera education through various public universities, UiTM, and other overseas education programmes.
“This disproportionate allocation based on the affirmative policy framework is not yielding its desired result while creating a brain drain in the process.
“It is time for the government to gradually focus on merits rather than on identity or political mindset,” he said.
However, former education minister Maszlee Malik pointed out in a tweet that there was a also significant decrease in allocations for public higher learning institutions compared to last year.
“This is despite the fact that they are all struggling to reopen their respective campuses after the Covid-19 pandemic,” the former university lecturer said.
Meanwhile, PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli in an interview with TV3 said building only five new schools for the whole of Malaysia was worrying.
Race-based policies compromise quality
Arumugam also urged the government to “wake up” to a globalised world and seek to remedy the declining quality of education in the country
He explained that education policy decisions rooted in ethnic identity had compromised the quality of teaching.
“Increasing budget allocation does not necessarily improve education quality,” he said.
Commenting on the bloated Budget 2023 overall, Arumugam welcomed it, saying it will have a spill-over effect on the economy by increasing consumption, creating jobs, and putting more money into circulation.
However, he lamented that the budget did not address leakages.
“Prices are rising due to a weakening ringgit and the B40’s income poverty line set at RM1,169 for food was too low,” he explained.
Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz announced on Friday that he was able to meet his Budget 2022 commitment to expand the eligibility requirements for the Food Poverty Line Income to RM1,169.
In his budget tabling, he said more than 450,000 households were now eligible to receive the monthly welfare assistance.
Zafrul announced an RM2.5 billion allocation for this in 2023. A significant increase from the RM1.5 billion allocation in 2020.
Meanwhile, Arumugam declared that the RM100 million allocation under Mitra and another RM25,000 set aside for Indian entrepreneurs were viewed as inadequate and a mere pacifier.
He said although the allocation could support some community, preschools, youth, and NGO programmes, it should be increased to RM200 million and placed under Mitra. - Mkini
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