‘Govt being unfair on matriculation intake’ | Free Malaysia Today

‘Govt being unfair on matriculation intake’
B Nantha Kumar
| June 23, 2013

Angry parents want answers on why their deserving children are not allocated matriculation placements and claim rampant discrimination and fraud at the department level.

KUALA LUMPUR: Parents unhappy with the latest matriculation programme intake want the government to form a royal commission of inquiry on the alleged fraudulent and racially discriminative malpractices involved in allocating seats to deserving students.

They also want Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to be accountable for his official announcement that the government would offer 1,500 matriculation seats for Indian students.

“We are fed up with Matriculation Department’s racial policies in handling the matriculation seats for non-Malays,” said A Thiruvengadam, the spokesperson for disgruntled parents who gathered at the MIC headquarters this morning to show their displeasure over the allocations.

Thiruvengadam, the president of the Malaysian Indian Education Awareness and Welfare Foundation (PKP-KIM), said that the government and the MIC must stick to their promise to the Indian community on the 1,500-seat allocation.

Right now, he claimed, seats allocated for deserving Indian students were far less than the promised 1,500 and that many deserving Indian students were rejected a place to pursue the marticulation programme. Some of these students were also present at the protest this morning.

Thiruvengadam claimed that the Matriculation Department used various tactics to discriminate against the non-Malay students from getting matriculation placements.

“For example, the department insists on merit points of 93.8 for Indians and 97 for Chinese students. But we have evidence that the department has “awarded” places for 46 students with merit points of 75 and below,” he said.

“How it possible?” he asked, adding that a Chinese student who scored 9A+ was rejected a place to do the matriculation programme.

Choo Yong Wei, a student from Tanjung Rambutan, Perak, qualifies to do the programme with 97.17 merit points but was rejected due to unknown reasons.

Thiruvengadam also claimed that another tactic used by the Matriculation Department to ensure non-Malay students are not given matriculation seats are by delaying their applications.

He explained that the department would deliberately reject qualified students and require them to appeal. The result of the appeal would only be known after one or two months after the intake.

“Because of this delay, the students give up the matriculation programme and pursue their studies in STPM and in other private colleges,” he said.

“This is happening almost every year. Until today no permanent solution has been found because the Matriculation Department always hide behind politicians,” he added.

Rejected list handed to MIC

After the protest, the parents and Thiruvengadam submitted a list of 333 rejected students to MIC for further action.

Thiruvengadam said all the 333 students, including four Chinese students, deserved their matriculation seats. He urged MIC to find spots for these students by next Wednesday.

The list was received by MIC Higher Education bureau representative A Prakash Rao. MIC’s P Kamalanathan is the deputy education minister.

Thiruvegadam also warned MIC leaders not to issue media statements without knowing the facts on matriculation intake.

“We are disappointed with MIC leaders, especially Health Minister and MIC deputy president Dr S Subramaniam and deputy minister Kamalanathan over their statements on this matter,” he said.

Recently both the leaders claimed that the Matriculation Department had awarded 1,500 seats for Indian students for this year.

“It is not true at all. We have the full list and the total number of seats given to Indian students is around 700 to 800,” said Thiruvengadam.

Also read:

Protest for matriculation seats
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