Kuala Lumpur: The Indian community must not depend solely on the Malaysian government in the field of education and should follow the Chinese diaspora's example, a Malaysian Indian community leader has said.

Ethnic Chinese leaders, parents and teachers sacrificed a lot by providing the much-needed assistance to ensure that there were more qualified citizens in the economic, medical, science, engineering and education sectors, said Malaysian Hindu Sangam president A. Vaithilingam.

Tamil Nesan newspaper reported him as saying that Indians should emulate the Chinese diaspora in all aspects of developing education for the community.

He said that about 50 years ago, the Indian community had more dropouts and some barely entered secondary schools but the situation had changed and there were many Indian professionals and entrepreneurs now.

"We should look into setting up at least two Indian private secondary schools," he was quoted as saying in The Star on Thursday.

The relatively well-off Chinese form about 33 percent of Malaysia's 28 million population while Indians, mostly Tamils, are estimated at about eight percent. IANS