PTD Lab , Work in Progress at Rinching Estate School

PTD : ICT Coordinators Meeting

A Meeting Between PTD Management Team and School ICT Coordinators on 29th December 2010. The meeting aims to identify weakness and problems faced in implementation of Program Titian Digital.

Fruit discussion was held during the meeting including some sharing of experiences on how they overcome resistance from parents. One such sharing were a school identify well educated parents refuse to send their childrens for ICT classes due to small adminitration fee charged while parents from poor background very much keen.

Many other issues were discussed during the meeting including year 2011 ICT teachers training calendar and proposed Internet week.

LOGO : Program Titian Digital

Let's Teach ICT to Kids

You may have notice my recent post on Digital Divide. Currently I'm working on a project called Program Titian Digital with HYO Port Klang and Malaysian Comminuty & Education Foundation (MCEF).

The United Nations' Annual Human Development Report 2001 which studied the relationship between technology and economic prosperity came to the conclusion that poor people need more innovation and access to technology, not less.

While at our home ground, a joint study by Monash University and Yonsei University , South Korea found that :

 a) People of Indian Origin have the lowest use of ICT among three ethnic group
 b) Government Assisted land scheme (Such as FELDA) has the highest ICT adoption rates: and on the other hand POP (privately owned plantations) has the lowest adoption rates

The study also suggest Government has vital role in providing access to appropriate ICT infrastructure for homes and schools in the POP . Does, that happen in Malaysia  where Information is the life blood of communities in knowledeg-intensive society. In many rural areas across the globe, weak and uncoirdinated ICT development plans not only hinder reasons for widening the knowledge and wealth gaps between rural and urban communities.

Realising the Important of ICT, Selangor State Government had sponsored some Labs to Tamil schools in the state.  While for other states are working NLFCS, Magnum, Astro, Rotary Club of Kelana Sg Ujung . Some lobbying also taking place at Federal level thou signal still look blank.

As a community can we let our rural /estate tamil school student in darkness knowing ICT will overtake. Only with ICT knowledge our community can leapfrog or be in par with others in coming days especially with government High Income Transformation plan. Do we want to see our community stranded again during next Economical Transformation tsunami.

Can we joint hand together sponsor a fully function ICT Lab. That has  41 terminals connected to a server, with table, chair, projectors, screen, Edu-Ubuntu /open source software. Do kindly visit http://titiandigital.blogspot.com/ for some details of the program.

We will be happy to organise a Hi-tea program in KL or PJ should there is keen interest from members of public  to explain further on our Initiative.

Appreciate if we can co-operate .

Regards
S. Arikrishnan

REASON WHY VERNACULAR TAMIL SCHOOL NEED YOUR SUPPORT

Docu produced by Indrani Kopal in 2007.

Tamil schools, like the Chinese schools, are often seen to be sidelined by the government, though they are said to be an integral part of the national education system.

Former education minister Musa Mohamad once stated in 2000 that Tamil schools should be regarded as 'the responsibility of the community' although the Constitution provides that "there shall be no discrimination against any citizen in providing out of the funds of a public authority financial aid for the maintenance or education of pupils or students in any educational institution ()"

In 1957, there were approximately 888 Tamil schools which were established in rubber estates predominantly resided by workers of South Indian origin.

Today the number has been reduced to 523 mainly for the purposes of development.

(Text: Malaysiakini/Jiwi Kathaiah)

This documentary gives Malaysian Indian an insight of the ongoing struggle of Tamil schools in Malaysia.