Anwar said he would meet with education minister Fadhlina Sidek soon to talk about promoting the language in schools nationwide.

“The national education policy stipulates that Bahasa Malaysia has to be the main medium of instruction, and to promote English, too.

“However, the issue is the condition imposed by the education ministry. If you have a few students, you’ll have a problem finding teachers. To have a (minimum of) 15 students may be too tough a condition.

“I will speak to the education minister after this conference. We will (try to) reduce the minimum number to 10 students,” he said during 11th international Tamil research conference at the Tamil research centre, Universiti Malaya (UM) today.

Anwar said he believes that mastery of additional languages is important and, in many elite schools worldwide, students are encouraged to do so.

He also said it will be advantageous for the country, adding that he will provide an additional RM2 million for UM’s Indian studies department as part of a wider RM5 million investment in the Indian community.

Anwar dismissed as divisive any notions that this funding came at the expense of the Malay community. He added that the Malay community receives hundreds of millions of ringgit a year to promote language, literature and culture.

“I hope the (university’s) senate will support the Tamil studies project and possibly translate some of the great works,” he said.