More Tamil Schools To Become Fully Aided

KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 (Bernama) -- The Education Ministry has agreed in principle to the conversion of all partially-aided Tamil schools into fully-aided schools in stages, MIC president Datuk Seri S.Samy Vellu said Tuesday.

He said the decision was reached at a meeting between him and Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein here Tuesday. Among those in the MIC president's delegation was Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam, who is also MIC secretary-general.

Samy Vellu said that of the total 524 Tamil schools, 322 were partially-aided and the rest fully-aided.

"Although an agreement was reached on the status of the partially-aided schools, the Education Minister said he still needed to seek the consent of the Cabinet," Samy Vellu said in a statement.

He said it had been MIC's "long-fought battle" to convert the schools into fully-aided schools "and we now can see some concrete move (by the government)".

Samy Vellu said he did not go into the details of the conversion such as the land status of the schools but only said that it would be done in stages.

"We can't expect the entire 322 (partially-aided) Tamil schools to be converted overnight. It will take some time but we are confident that eventually all the schools will be converted," he said.

The MIC president said he also raised the issue of allocations and the reconstruction of Tamil schools with Hishammuddin.

Some RM40 million was allocated by the government to rebuild a number of schools.

-- BERNAMA

RM100 million for 7 Estate Tamil Schools

Deputy Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister YB Kohilan Pillai, in his statement to Malaysia Nanban, a tamil daily that his Ministry had identified 7 tamil schools that located in estates nationwide. RM 100 million have been allocated to that schools from his ministry. This sum will be distributed to those schools in 5 years period.

JOHOR PUTERA MIC ORGANIZING SCIENCE FAIR FOR TAMIL SCHOOL STUDENTS

Johor PUTERA MIC in collaboration with Sri Murugan Centre, UTHM, UTM and IPTI are organizing a Science Fair for Young Children on 11^th May 2008 (Sunday) at 9.00am in Sultan Iskandar Hall, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

This splendid event is expecting a crowd of 3000 people including 500 students. This project is specially meant for Tamil school students all over Johor. The highlight of this program is that 59 schools out of 70 schools with 65 teams are taking part in this contest which we count as the largest number of teams participating in 6 states.

The winner will be awarded RM 2000 with trophies, first runner-up is getting RM 1500 and trophies, second runner-up is getting RM 1000 and trophies, for third runner up and forth runner-up is RM 750 and RM 500 with trophies. Besides that, 10 consolation prizes are to be given away and all the contestants are getting certificates. This program is open for everyone to visit.

For further information, please feel free to contact Mr. Anand- 019 2255421, Mr. Mohan- 012 4410071, Mr. Raam Kumar- 017 7633134 or Mr. Krishna – 016 5068241 ...

• Science Fair for Young Children 2008

Science Fair for Young Children 2008 - 225 Tamil schools nationwide.

For the last 3 years, Tamil Foundation has conducted “Young Scientific Explorers’ (YSE) involving 360 students in 2004, 1120 students in 2005 and 2094 students in 2006. YSE was developed to introduce science to young people in a fun manner using everyday items. It was conducted by visiting the participating schools and exhibiting 8 simple experiments, followed by a visit to the National Science Centre.

This project was a collaborative effort between The Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) and Tamil Foundation, Malaysian Indian Science Intellectuals Association, (MISI), Education, Welfare and Research Foundation (EWRF) and the Head Masters Council (Selangor). To take-off this pilot project, the Science Fair 2007 was held in Dewan Tunku Cancelor (DTC), University of Malaya and consisted of 49 teams from 44 schools across Wilayah and Selangor.

The Science Fair 2007 was a great success to us and hope that it can be further improved in “Science Fair for Young Children 2008”. In 2008, Science Fair will be conducted in 6 zones in the months of April-May and as a follow-up of that, a National level competition will be held in the month of June involving up to 1125 students at the state level and 250 students at the national level.

This project aims to improve on the concept, supporting structure and implementation tools of Science Fair 2007 and help coordinate and organize Science Fairs primarily in Tamil Schools nationwide and thereby creating a greater awareness about science and scientific methods. It also aims to help motivate the students with the drive for achievement in their quest for knowledge.

6 Zones

Total number of schools targeted to participate in Science Fair 2008 = 225 Tamil schools nationwide.

Science Fair provides an opportunity for students, individually or as members of a team to actually apply the theories and skills they have learned and acquired in their study of science. For students who have not studied science, the Science Fair project will be rather difficult. But if your respective classes and schools have made an effort to give students lots of experience solving scientific problems, the Science Fair provides a perfect platform for the kids to show what they’ve learned. It also provides a venue to show the students and the academic community on the whole, how important and useful SCIENCE is.

Science Fair 2008 is a very important tool to encourage our students to participate in more knowledge related activities and to make the learning process more fun oriented. For more information, please contact

Project Officer,
Science Fair for Young Children 2008
Tel: 03-2692 6533
Fax: 03-2692 6758

http://www.tamilfoundation.org