A Tamil education group, desperate to make the government shelve a controversial language switch which will be implemented in schools next month, will hand over a memorandum directly to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's office tomorrow.

Malaysian Tamil Education Research and Development Foundation (MTERDF) had earlier sought to meet the prime minister in a letter of request but did not receive any reply.

MTEDRF secretary R Sivamani said the organisation then sent a second letter informing Mahathir 's office that they would submit a memorandum instead.

"We have tried a lot of things. We also tried to meet Education Minister Musa Mohamed but there was no reply from him too.

Rural students most affected

"Although the government thinks the policy will benefit Malaysian children, we know the marginalised students especially those in rural areas will not be able to catch up with their studies. It will affect the children of our Malay and Chinese friends too," said Sivamani.

He said he hoped Mahathir will review the policy to teach Maths and Science in English in Year One before the new school year begins early next month.

He added the memorandum was endorsed by more than 10 education and social groups, including several which are Malay- and Chinese-based.

Last week, even MIC voiced out grouses over the policy when it found out the education ministry would not allocate LCD projectors and laptop computers to facilitate the language switch in schools which are 'under-enrolled' or have less than 150 pupils.

This is expected to affect some 300 out of 520 existing Tamil primary schools in the country.

Education groups meet

Many Indian-based groups such as MTERDF and Group of Concerned Citizens (GCC) have protested against the policy since it was proposed months ago.

They feared that their children will not be able to cope with the language switch and that the characteristics of Tamil schools may be altered as a result of the implementation of the policy.

In a related development, MTERDF together with two other education groups met yesterday with some 30 university and college students to discuss the impact of the switch on national education.

The two groups are Musleh, an organisation aimed at coordinating the cooperation among Islamic schools, and Dong Jiao Zong which represents committees and teachers in Chinese schools.

Among those present at the meeting were MTERDF president M Manogar, Musleh treasurer Fadzil Hadi Abdullah and Dong Zong deputy president Dr Yap Sin Tian.

The students who represented 14 different organisations in their respective campuses issued a joint statement after the meeting to urge the government to abolish the language switch.

Set up reform committee

They however stressed that they were not against an effort to improve English proficiency among primary and secondary students.

"The command of English is important in the era of globalisation...but we do not see how it will strengthen the language proficiency among students. Worst still, we are worried that it may further jeopardise our education system," read the statement.

The student representatives also said a National Education Reform Committee should be established to study and overcome the weaknesses of the present education system.

"The government should stop turning the education issue into a racial issue and identify what is to be done with the education system," they added in the statement.