Emulate BN by allotting matriculation spots for Indians, govt told

 

Former Sedic director-general NS Rajendran says Indian students from B40 families who enter university can secure good jobs and transform their communities. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A former senior civil servant has urged Putrajaya to emulate the Barisan Nasional administration and provide at least 2,200 matriculation seats for the Indian community.

NS Rajendran, a former director-general of the socio-economic development of the Indian community unit (Sedic), said this initiative could bring significant change for the community and can be implemented without difficulty.

“I request that the government consider giving the matriculation slots to Indian students like what a former prime minister did (by) providing 2,200 seats, especially to those in the B40 income bracket.

“We managed to do this (in 2018), so this is nothing new.

“(If) these poor students enter matriculation and continue their studies at a local university, when they return home, they would be able to gain access to a good job which can change the community,” he told FMT.

In December 2018, Sedic was rebranded by the Pakatan Harapan administration and became the Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra).

In April 2018, just prior to the 14th general election (GE14), then prime minister Najib Razak announced an allocation of an additional 700 matriculation seats for Indian students, on top of the existing 1,500.

Last week, Senator C Sivaraj urged Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to show his commitment to uplifting the socio-economic status of Indians by providing 2,500 matriculation seats for the community.

DAP MP V Ganabatirau echoed similar sentiments, urging Anwar to announce a definitive number of matriculation seats for Indians. He said there has been a lack of transparency over what transpired after the PH government took over in 2018.

Ganabatirau claimed that Najib’s successors – Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Muhyiddin Yassin and then Ismail Sabri Yaakob – had reduced the number of seats for the Indian community drastically without disclosing the figure to the public.

“There was no clarity as to how many (places) were being offered, how many (students were) accepted, how many offers dropped due to mismatch in courses.

“As such, the Indian community has complained (of a lack of) transparency from the relevant ministry,” he said.

Meanwhile, former MIC president Dr S Subramaniam said he was in the dark as to whether the 2,200 slots allocated by the Najib administration were maintained after GE14.

“From the time the government gave us 1,500 seats, we did intense monitoring of the number of students given places to enter matriculation and I’m glad to say a lot of them did very well in the university.

“We ensured the number was always maintained. But as to what happened after 2018, we don’t know whether the 2,200 seats were given to Indian students,” he said.

“And I don’t know if there’s any entity monitoring (the matter).”

Subramaniam, a former minister, said the government under Abdullah Badawi and Najib, as his deputy then, was proactive in addressing the future of the Indian community.

It was in a Cabinet committee for Indian affairs chaired by Najib that the issue of a limited number of matriculation seats for the community was raised, he said. - FMT