Tamil Schools Research Articles

Story Telling Techniques in Enhancing the Comprehension Skill in Bahasa Malaysia: A Case Study of Primary Tamil Schools in Johor Bahru District, Malaysia

Stories are narratives of a series of events of the past, or of imaginary future and they have been a part of human culture since humans existed. The effect of stories in language and literacy skills is well established in the literature (Egan, 1986; Nelson, 1989; Morrow 2001; Raines & Isbell 1994; Isbell, 2002). This is so true about young children. When young children are recited stories, they not only listen to them, but also actively participate in building language skills during the process (Isbell, 2002). Through the use of storytelling, children can be helped to build vocabulary, use more complex sentences and expressive language, improve comprehension (Isbell, 2002). This study therefore, analyses the effectiveness of storytelling technique for enhancing comprehensionskill in teaching Bahasa Malaysia for primary Tamil school in Johor Bahru District. The specific purposes of the study are:a) To analyze the Bahasa Malaysia comprehension skills of students in primary Tamil schools in Johor Bahru District; b) To analyze the role of storytelling technique in enhancing the Bahasa Malaysia comprehension skills of students in primary Tamil schools in Johor Bahru District.

“Doing-ethnicity” – Tamil educational organizations as socio-cultural and political actors

The article focuses on Tamil schools abroad that are part of the Tamil Education Development Council (TEDC), and on their construction of ethno-national belongings. By presenting the TEDC geographical, contextual and organizational structures, the article explains how education organizations form a transnational space where the organizations reinforce and recreate ethno-national orientations and belongings, which in turn reconstructs the Tamil diaspora itself through processes of standardization and homogenization.

A global effort for educational equity

A look at Teach For All’s global work through the lens of Teach For Malaysia one of several dozen organizations around the world inspired by Teach For America and Teach First to share solutions as they adapt a common approach to tackle education inequality in their home countries. A deeper look at Malaysian education brought Teach For Malaysia to defy the consensus opinion that many Malaysian children have poor education and life prospects because they aren’t taught English. Instead, Teach For Malaysia found that the core problem was that students from Malay primary schools were struggling with basic literacy in Malay, and students from Tamil or Mandarin schools had the added challenge of adjusting to a new language. So Teach For Malaysia focused its teacher training on improving literacy in both English and Malay.

Parental Involvement at Home: Analyzing the Influence of Parents’ Socioeconomic Status

The present study focuses on the relationship between parent’s socioeconomic status and parental involvement in their child’s education at home. Eighty Indian students who were studying in one the best performance-based National Type Tamil Schools in the state of Kedah, Malaysia were chosen based on purposive sampling. It comprised 20 students from Year Two, 20 students from Year Three, 20 students from Year Four and 20 students from Year Five. Of these 80 students, 40 low-achieving students and 40 high-achieving students were identified based on the previous final year school examination results. A questionnaire was used to obtain quantitative data related to the parent’s socio-economic background and their ¬involvement strategies in their children’s education at home from the students’ parents. The findings of this study indicated that most parents, regardless of their socioeconomic background showed a high degree of involvement in most of the involvement strategies at home to ensure their child’s educational success. However, the parent’s education level, employment status, and income among the parents from the lower socioeconomic class affect their understanding and knowledge on the actual values that need to be placed on their child’s education. This causes their children to experience deprivation. As a result, the higher the parent’s socioeconomic status, the greater the parent’s involvement in their child’s education. As a result, the parents inculcate good skills, behaviour and values of education in their children which are extremely important for their academic success. Keywords : Parental involvement; Socioeconomic; Education; National Type Tamil School

Bridging School and Parents: Parental Involvement in their Child’s Education

This study was designed to identify the relationship between school-parents cooperation in enhancing Indian parents’ involvement in their child’s education. A hundred and fifty Indian students who were studying in National Type Tamil Schools in the district of Kerian, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia were randomly chosen based on stratified random sampling. The sample comprised 50 students from Year Three, 50 students from Year Four and 50 students from Year Five. Structured interviews were conducted with the respondents. Questionnaires were used by the researcher to obtain quantitative data related to the school-parents partnership and the parents’ involvement strategies implemented for their child’s education. The findings of this study indicate a moderate relationship in school-parents partnership in enhancing Indian parents’ involvement in their child’s education. The more the parents feel welcome at school, the higher their involvement in their child’s education. The parents also show higher involvement when the school is cooperative in discussing their child. In addition, findings also indicate that parents are more involved in their child’s education when the parents are kept informed about the meetings, activities and events that they have to attend.

Family violence, war, and natural disasters: A study of the effect of extreme stress on children's mental health in Sri Lanka

BackgroundThe consequences of war violence and natural disasters on the mental health of children as well as on family dynamics remain poorly understood. Aim of the present investigation was to establish the prevalence and predictors of traumatic stress related to war, family violence and the recent Tsunami experience in children living in a region affected by a long-lasting violent conflict. In addition, the study looked at whether higher levels of war violence would be related to higher levels of violence within the family and whether this would result in higher rates of psychological problems in the affected children.Methods296 Tamil school children in Sri Lanka's North-Eastern provinces were randomly selected for the survey. Diagnostic interviews were carried out by extensively trained local Master level counselors. PTSD symptoms were established by means of a validated Tamil version of the UCLA PTSD Index. Additionally, participants completed a detailed checklist of event types related to organized and family violence.Results82.4% of the children had experienced at least one war-related event. 95.6% reported at least one aversive experience out of the family violence spectrum. The consequences are reflected in a 30.4% PTSD and a 19.6% Major Depression prevalence. Linear regression analyses showed that fathers' alcohol intake and previous exposure to war were significantly linked to the amount of maltreatment reported by the child. A clear dose-effect relationship between exposure to various stressful experiences and PTSD was found in the examined children.ConclusionData argue for a relationship between war violence and violent behavior inflicted on children in their families. Both of these factors, together with the experience of the recent Tsunami, resulted as significant predictors of PTSD in children, thus highlighting the detrimental effect that the experience of cumulative stress can have on children's mental health.

Bangsa Malaysia and Recent Malaysian English Language Policies

This paper analyses Malaysia’s English language policies, especially since the mid 1990s, in the light of more recent claims for a united Malaysian nation (under the banner of bangsa Malaysia) and in the context of English language and its potential for Malaysia to forge more of an externalised identity. It examines the impact of postindependence measures to boost the status of Malay by switching the language medium in schools to Malay (Bahasa Malaysia). This had an immediate effect on English medium schools, but the same measure was not carried through to Chinese or Tamil schools. For the latter, students nonetheless had to demonstrate competence in Bahasa Malaysia and so there evolved an effective bilingualism for non-Malays – a bilingualism that was not generally available for the bulk of Malay students. By the 1990s, Malaysia sought to reintroduce English language competence via its schools and tertiary education. This measure is part of an overall effort to engage with the globalising world.

The Doctrine of the Three Humors in Traditional Indian Medicine and the Alleged Antiquity of Tamil Siddha Medicine

According to the standard doctrine of Indian traditional medicine (Ayurveda) a person's health depends on the balance of the three faults (dosa). This can be shown to be a secondary development. In the earliest attestations, the faults referred to a number or irregularities that cause illness, and only later-under the influence of Sāmkhya philosophy-the three faults became a necessary feature of good health, in parallel with the three virtues (guna). This development can be traced step by step from the Buddhist canonical texts through Caraka to Susruta and Vāgbhaţa. In the Tamil school of Siddha medicine, the strange notion that health depends on a balance of faults appears without antecedents that could explain it ; the school is therefore a late expansion of the system of medicine taught by Susruta and Vāgbhaţa.

The Poverty of Education in the Malaysian Plantation Frontier

Traditionally plantations in Malaysia provide primary school education for the children of their workers as well as other basic needs. This element is normally part of the ‘package’ of welfare facilities offered to the residential work force on plantations. However, the conditions under which this educational scheme is usually implemented are far from satisfactory, in comparison with those of the population as a whole and the progress achieved in the democratization of education since independence. Thus the plantation workers’ children have become an educationally disadvantaged group, with the highest drop-out rates, lowest achievement levels, and attending the ‘poorest and smallest’ schools in the entire nation. Almost all these schools in plantations are ‘Tamil Schools’ in accordance with the majority residential work force — Indian Tamils who form the bulk of the labour force in plantations. Basically this paper will review the characteristics and the educational climate of these schools, along with other indicators of education such as enrolment rates, drop-out rates, and achievement rates.

Some observations on the feasibility of the white paper recommendations for a new scheme of measurement and evaluation in the school system in Sri Lanka

The White Paper on Education (1981) has made a series of proposals for a new system of measurement and evaluation of student performance in our school system. The purpose of this article is to examine the nature of these proposals and the extent of their appicability. The White Paper outlines its proposals for the new system of measurement and evaluation at four levels: primary, junior secondary, senior secondary and collegiate, as shown in Fig. 1. It would be convenient to consider the proposals under the same headings. It would be relevant, however, to begin with a brief history of the present system of examinations so as to provide a background to a proper understanding of the nature of these proposals and their practicability. Sri Lanka inherited the British system of education as well as its principles and methods of evaluation as a result of her colonial status under the British Crown. This system of education based on the British model paved the way for the creation of an elite class in the society and remains unchanged even today. In feudal society education had always been the monopoly of a privileged few. The system of classifying schools according to the medium of instruction, which the British introduced, led to the perpetuation of this characteristic and the emergence of an ‘elitist’ group within the local population. Under the British system there were in Sri Lanka English schools where students received instruction in the English medium and Sinhala and Tamil schools where the medium of instruction was the mother tongue. English schools were, from the very beginning considered superior and their products naturally acquired a higher social status. Moreover, those who studied in the English schools were able to sit examinations conducted by British educa-