Special budget for SJK starting next year

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin has announced that the government will be providing a special budget for national-type Tamil (SJKTs) and Chinese (SJKCs) schools from next year.

"The government's commitment is to see that with all the aid given, the quality of education at SJKTs will improve, thus bring about a quantum leap in the education standard in the country," he said in his Thaipusam speech at Batu Caves here on Saturday.

Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, pointed out that the Malaysia Education Blueprint would ensure that all schools including SJKTs would have access to quality education.

He drew attention to the fact that the Education Ministry had channelled RM584,382,340 for operating expenditure of SJKTs in 2011, and this figure went up to RM660,346,311 in 2012.

Besides that, SJKTs were also allocated RM100 million in the 2012 and 2013 Budgets for development purposes, he said.

Muhyiddin stressed that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government always had the interests of the Indian community at heart and this was reflected in the setting up of a special Cabinet committee to look after the wellbeing of the community.

Citing the MyDaftar programme as an example, he said it had helped the community resolve all sorts of documentation problems.

As of May 2012, 4,155 citizenship applications, 222 marriage applications, 682 MyKad aplications as well as 71 appplications related to amendments in birth certificates had been approved, he said.

In addition, the number of matriculation places for Indian students was increased by 1,000 in 2012, from 500 in 2011.

"The goverment also allocated RM1 billion in shares under Amanah Saham 1Malaysia for the community besides disbursing various financial aid like schooling aid and Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M)," he said.

Muhyiddin also said not many multi-racial and multi-religious countries could maintain peace attained since independence like Malaysia.

"But in Malaysia, racial and religious differences are not obstacles for us to achieve peace and prosperity," he said.

He said while European countries were saddled with recession, Malaysia's economy registered a 5.3 per cent growth in the third quarter of 2012.

"The success does not stop here. Within the next seven years, the people will be able to see Malaysia emerge as a developed nation," he added.

Muhyiddin said he was confident that the Indian community would continue to support the BN to ensure that all plans laid out would be implemented while the aspiration of living in a developed, peaceful and prosperous country would be achieved.