PH govt to review Malaysian Indian Blueprint

SHAH ALAM: The Malaysian Indian Blueprint (MIB) launched by the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) administration is one of the many policies and initiatives that will be reviewed by the current Pakatan Harapan (PH) government.
Stating this, Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran added that all good initiatives that are truly beneficial to the people will be maintained.
"Whatever that was said by the previous government will be reviewed. Whatever stated in the MIB will also be reviewed. The background of the MIB is nothing unusual, some of it I have already raised in Parliament long ago," he told a press conference after attending the Tamil Foundation Malaysia's annual general meeting here.
"Review in the sense (that), we have our PH (manifesto), (so) whatever that is positive and good we will take it," added the Ipoh Barat MP.
"(Among others) a special incentive must be done, we must also be able to do the upscaling and skills training in particular and transform the workers to a better level to a higher income group. And I have instructed my ministry to look into this," he said.
Kulasegaran stressed that this was part of the outcome from a meeting he had with Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad last Monday where they discussed issues involving the Indian community.
"The government will keep its commitment as much as possible to the building of schools but we have limitations since we are short of money now.
"Our national debt is more than double but be that as it may, our basic duty is to strengthen our workers and enrich our people. (These) will not be compromised. We will do all we can to achieve that over time," he said.
Kulasegaran noted that there is a special segment for the Indian community as part of the 25 undertakings by PH.
"Specifically to Tamil school matters (our commitment is) to ensure that all schools are fully-aided. When you are partially aided, you have to raise funds from the public.
"The other one is to build a Tamil secondary school in Penang, because we started off in Penang," he added.
Kulasegaran said the enrollment in Tamil schools is not as encouraging compared to the other vernacular schools, thus there is an urgent need to improve the overall quality of Tamil schools.