Compiled by C.ARUNO, TARRENCE TAN and R.ARAVINTAN
AN Education Ministry directive on daily newspapers for all schools has upset the Indian community as it did not include non-Bahasa Malaysia publications, Makkal Osai reported.
The circular to all school headmasters and principals reportedly instructed them to make three specific Bahasa Malaysia newspapers available starting this school year.
The circular provides guidelines for how to procure these publications, how many copies to buy, and how to source for additional funding if there are insufficient discretionary funds.
Makkal Osai claimed that the Indian community has questioned why Tamil and Chinese newspapers were not in the directive.The daily noted that the directive called for three copies of the dailies to be made available in primary schools and 15 copies in secondary schools.
With a total of around 10,000 schools in the country, this is a massive boon for the dailies, Makkal Osai argued.
With Tamil dailies struggling to reach readers, including non-Bahasa Malaysia newspapers in the programme would help their survival, Makkal Osai said, urging the ministry to review the directive.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
