I refer to the letter Don't discard Tamil mother-tongue education .

With regards to Tamil schools. I feel the fundamental objective of an education is to make you knowledgeable in the best possible manner, be it in your mother's tongue or in whatever other language. Maintaining Tamil schools just for the sake of propagating one's mother tongue is completely wrong especially so when you disadvantage the pupils.

The most important issue at hand is, do the children who attend these schools get the best opportunity to attain knowledge? Today, going by the facilities and number of teachers available in Tamils schools, I would probably think not ( my personal opinion). This is based on what I have seen and heard from.

Here are some examples of how I have reached this conclusion. When I was attending secondary school in my home town, some of the weakest students were from Tamil schools. We probably had more 80 percent of them drop out after the Form three exams.

When I attended university, I hardly met anyone who attended a Tamil school. The Tamils schools I have visited in my home town were so badly maintained that there was leakages when it rained. There was no electricity supply and in some schools, no water supply either.

The teachers I met at these schools were selfish and their biggest interest was to protect their jobs. One teacher encouraged Tamil parents to send their children to Tamil schools but quietly enrolled his children in a national school. I must qualify, however, that some of the teachers were very dedicated and went all out to promote the best education for their students. Unfortunately, these were only a handful.

Unlike Chinese schools, which are wealthy with dedicated teachers (as they are probably well- paid), Tamil school pupils are in most situations disadvantaged. There are, however, a few Tamil schools which provide a good education for their pupils and these schools should be maintained.

For the remaining Tamil schools, I would strongly urge the authorities to close them down and transfer the affected pupils national schools so that there, at least some form of knowledge and education is gained by them.

Even better, I would urge parents to carefully think about their children's education and what is best for them before deciding to enroll them in Tamil schools. For when there is no enrolment or a minimal, the schools will close.