Deputy Minister Holds Talks with TN Ministers Panneerselvam, Pandiarajan
The Malaysian government has proposed to the Tamil Nadu government the idea of an exchange programme for students and teachers, at the levels of secondary and university education.
Disclosing this, Deputy Minister of Education P. Kamalanathan, in response to a query by The Hindu , told a group of journalists here on Saturday that he had held discussion with Tamil Nadu’s Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam and School Education Minister K. Pandiarajan in this regard.
Noting that Tamil Nadu had attained high levels of standards in the application of information and communication technology (ICT), Mr. Kamalanathan said the proposed programme would provide better exposure to the student and teaching community.
This might help producing student leaders too. On the size of Tamil students in schools of his country, Mr. Kamalanathan said that apart from one lakh students in Tamil-medium schools, around 80,000 students were studying in schools where the medium instruction was Malay or Chinese and this was attributed to the proximity to their places of residence.
Oratorical competition
On a host of events planned to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the introduction of Tamil education in Malaysia, the Deputy Minister said his government was contemplating holding an international oratorical competition in Tamil for the students.
“We would like to have participants from countries such as India, Singapore and Sri Lanka,” he said and added that there were plans to hold in Chennai an exhibition on Malaysia, showcasing social and cultural facets of the South East Asian country.
Giving an account of measures taken by the present government to promote Tamil language and culture, Mr. Kamalanathan said the government would conduct an event to mark Deepavali on November 19 in Hulu Selangor, a parliamentary constituency represented by him and located about 50 km from Kuala Lumpur.
As many as 30,000 people, representing different ethnic backgrounds, were expected to take part in the event.
On the occasion of festivals such as Chinese New Year, Eid ul Fitr (Ramzan) and Christmas, the Malaysian government would organise similar events every year.
The Deputy Minister added that “Thai Poosam” was one of the public holidays in his country.
Ahmad Fajarazam Abdul Jalil, Consul General of Malaysia based in Chennai, wanted the Indian civil aviation authorities to permit Malaysian airline carriers to cover Madurai and Coimbatore too.
At present, Chennai and Tiruchi were being served by the carriers.
Pointing out that tourists from southern parts of India constituted a majority of the total tourists from the South Asian country, he said his office in Chennai,
last year, issued about 2.65 lakh visas compared to around two lakh visas issued totally in New Delhi and Mumbai.
