Kuala Lumpur, July 25 : Tamil schools in Malaysia need to be brought on par with other schools in the country in terms of funding and facilities, the president of the Malaysian Indian Business Association (MIBA), P. Sivakumar, has said.

"Almost 90 per cent of the (Indian) community are wage earners. There is no way for these people to contribute when they themselves often do not have enough. It is high time these schools were turned into fully funded schools. Don''t drag out the problem any more," the New Strait Times daily quoted Sivakumar, as saying.

Dismissing outright claims that the community is not doing enough to assist Tamil schools, he said that had it not been for private donors and wealthy businessmen from the community, half of the 523 Tamil schools in the country would have been closed down a long time ago.

He rejected the notion that the Tamil or Malay Indian community was asking for a government handouts like the Chinese community, which even runs private independent schools?

Education, Welfare and Research Foundation Malaysia (EWRF) president S. P. Pathi agreed that the community couldn’t take care of the Tamil schools on its own.

He dismissed as illogical the comparison between the Indians and the Chinese as economically, the Indians were way behind them. (ANI)