He said although the education sector had received a large sum, a close look would show that the allocations were “unfair”.

“For one, there is RM15 million for 60 independent Chinese schools, which means RM250,000 for each school.

“This is 6.5 times or 555% more than the allocations for national schools which only received RM RM38,172 each,” he said in the Dewan Rakyat.

Ismail also said that national-type Tamil schools (SJKT) received 2.5 times more than national-type Chinese schools (SJKC).

Based on the number of classes, he said, each national school class would only receive RM1,986 for upgrades while an SJKC class would get RM2,602 and an SJKT class, as much as RM11,299.

“The finance ministry should have a basis for allocating funds for schools, like the number of students or classes,” he said. “Don’t just pick a figure and announce it.

“I want to ask the ministry to clarify the basis on which the funds were allocated for our schools.”

He also urged the finance ministry to review allocations for the entire education sector to ensure that funds are distributed fairly and in proportion to the number of schools and students.