700 additional places for Indian students, a Deepavali gift: SEDIC

KUALA LUMPUR: The 700 additional places given to Indian students in the country's public higher education institutions is seen as a 'Deepavali gift' from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak (pix).
Director-general of the Special Unit for Socio-Economic Development of the Indian Community (SEDIC), Prof Datuk Dr N.S. Rajendran said allocating the additional places was part of the government's initiatives contained in the Malaysian Indian Blueprint (MIB), that is, to raise the entry of Indian students into the public tertiary institutions to 7%.
"The MIB itself is a big gift to the Indian community in this country, when the SEDIC and chairman of the Executive Committee of the Special Cabinet Committee on the Indian Community, Datuk Seri Dr S.Subramaniam brought up the issue of 745 eligible Indian students who were unable to get places in the public tertiary institutions.
"PM Najib then instructed the Higher Education Ministry to provide the places and most of them were offered places and the rest were absorbed in stages," he said when contacted, here, today.
Yesterday, Najib was quoted as saying he had recently instructed that an additional 700 places be given to Indian students at the public tertiary institutions.
Rajendran said an allocation of RM900 million was given for the development of national-type primary schools (SJKT) and RM1.2 billion approved to provide micro credit to Malaysian Indian entrepreneurs.
He said these efforts proved the government's commitment to assisting the Indian community to move forward, and this third largest ethnic community in Malaysia needed to be given the support by continuously providing them with various opportunities.
Last April 23, Najib launched the MIB which was specially drawn up to assist the Indian community, especially those in the B40 group (with the lowest household income), and it is a government official document for the development of this community in the next 10 years.
Rajendran said the Indian community would be getting more benefits from this first action plan for the community covering basic needs like education, housing, employment, entrepreneurship, trade, documentation and social development.
It is estimated that 227,600 people from the Indian community in Malaysia are in the B40 group, earning an average monthly household income of RM2,672. — Bernama