Terlebih dahulu, semoga Tok Guru Nik Aziz cepat sembuh, insyallah.
Lots to comment on (see the article on the bridge?) but got a wedding down south to get to, and much work, so just a short one:
A comment to my post on teaching Japanese generated some interesting comments. One hypothesised that it was to support scholars who studied in Japan and now couldn’t get jobs.
This story by Senthil Arjunan (whose brother I think I know) I found particularly worth sharing. Truly an inspiring struggle! -
nat, On my personal experience in USM, for more than 30 years there were many many languages in the pusat bahasa. This including arabic, french, thai and many more foreign languages.
for some reason there were no tamil language and when enquired , the Dean said no indians will support or lack of support from students etc.
To prove a point, students volunteers became part time teacher to teach other students as a trial for this program. Mind it, it was on personal basis as no clubs even indian society not willing to undertake this issue.
So, after the 1st year with many students, the Dean said, We need to see statistics, please show us statistics. so 2nd year was full of paperworks while the students-cum teachers ran their classes on fridays 12- 3pm ( University lectures free period) for an entire year .When presented the statistics to the Dean , she simply said , you did not have exams for the students so its not proof the teaching was done properly.
3rd year and 4th year the volunteer teachers and volunteer students kept on with the private classes without fail and even streamlined 4 different levels and had exams for the students. All these were happening while they themselves had their own coursework and degree to think about. after the 5th year rejection, They realised that the authorities were simply delaying the approval so those eager for this implementation will have themselves graduated and left the varsity compound- hoping this matter will die down.
Nevertheless, the torch was passed from Seniors to Juniors who kept the work going and even recruiting chinese students at class level zero and working their way each year to the whims and fancy of the management of Pusat bahasa.
I was among those who came in year 6 and stayed on till year 9 and seeing the dedication of the teachers and unsupportive University authorities, pushed the matter to Vice-chancellor who again told us to meet the Dean. Some students even graduated and continued with their masters just to ensure the success of this project but to no avail.
No arguments were valid with them, they gave us all kind of excuses including the economic value of Thai and japanese compared to Tamil, unsupportive students once the language is offered (ironic it is because they never tried offering it in the first place). They even had the knack to say, Students with Tamil in SPM might score high results due to low standard in the exams..
after 12 years of non-stop effort today Pusat bahasa in USM has accepted Tamil language as a paper and officially classes are run. This should have been their effort from the start , only proves that we have to struggle for what should be given to us in the 1st place.
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