I am humbled and happy to share with you the concern and kindness offered towards the Indian community by our beloved Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak when announcing the 11th Malaysia Plan (RMK 11) recently. Humbled, because a few of us from the community were able to provide good suggestions for the prosperity of the community, and happy because the Honourable Prime Minister listened to the feedback from the Indian community when he was developing the RMK 11.
Many of our proposals were considered and included in the RMK 11 by the Honourable Prime Minister. This proves that the government is committed to listening to solutions and ideas that originate from the Indian community.
In fact, the RMK 11 proposal is an extension of the Special Cabinet Committee on Indians Affairs initiative that delves deep into the areas that most impact and affect the Indian community in Malaysia. The committee which is chaired by the Honourable Prime Minister himself and ably assisted by Datuk Seri Dr S.Subramaniam, the Minister of Health and Deputy President of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), is responsible and accountable in managing the multiple dimensions of mainstream development in the country.
Other responsibilities include creating avenues for the Indian community to be part of this wave. Affirmative action and policies are discussed at this committee to ensure that the Indian communities in Malaysia achieve their full potential and the government instrumentation is able and ready to facilitate this transformation.
Another Minister and two Deputy Ministers from MIC are members of this committee as well the chief secretary to the government Tan Sri Dr. Ali Hamsa. Other high powered, prominent civil servants in the committee are the Secretary General of the Malaysian Treasury. Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar, Secretary Generals from the Ministry of Education YBhg Tan Sri Dr. Madinah and Dato' Seri Dr. Zaini Ujang and many Secretary Generals from various ministries.
This platform is the best place to formulate far reaching plans for the complete transformation of the Indian community and the catalyst to successfully chart the road map of change to the Malaysian Indian community. A little information on what transpired behind the scene to achieve the above success.
On the 17 and 18 January of this year, my office in collaboration with MIC organized a conference titled “Inclusivity in the 11th Malaysian Plan of Indians Education Needs”.
It was heartening to note that 130 Indians who were experts in their fields on education came together to come up with specific suggestions to the government to be included in the 11th Malaysian plan. Apart from the education based NGO’s the participants included various professors and also a deputy Vice Chancellor besides teachers and lecturers from across the country.
The purpose of this conference is to engage and take a holistic view of the challenges that the younger generation of Malaysian Indians have been facing and continue to face in the field of education.
The conference was divided into five specific levels of education namely pre-school, SJKT (Tamil schools), SK (National Schools), TVET (Polytechnics, Vocational and Technical education) and tertiary education. The outcome of the program was the identification of the relevant issues faced coupled with reasonable and realistic suggestions that are practical to be incorporated into RMK 11.
The aim was to ensure the inclusivity of Malaysian Indians to have optimum opportunities in their educational endeavours. Ultimately Malaysian Indians will be on par with all other Malaysians as the nation steps into the realm of a fully developed and high income nation.
Moving on, the proposal was completed and it was handed over to Datuk Seri Wahid Omar, who is the Minister in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). This was done in March.
Also the proposal was presented to Yayasan Pemulihan Social (YPS) during their organizations conference “Transformational Agenda for Community Resilience & Cohesion: Malaysian Indians & 11th Malaysia Plan, which was headed by YBhg Dato' Seri Utama S Samy Vellu, this was done so they could incorporate the educational perspective to their proposals to the government.
1 comment:
Hope all the efforts are translated into reality with evidence to show that something good was done to the Indian community, You should also suggest or include Indian business NGO for suggestion and comment so that upliftment in business could be done. People are fed up with the usual rhetoric.
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