KUCHING: A strategic partnership between the state National Registration Department (NRD) and state Education Department (JPN), shows that there are 1,297 school students in Sarawak who are without status in 2016.
This was revealed by Minister for Welfare, Women, and Community Wellbeing Datuk Hajah Fatimah Abdullah during a press conference at Baitulmakmur here yesterday.
Fatimah said that the number came from a database known as the Student Database Application (‘Aplikasi Pangkalan Data Murid’, APDM).
“Out of that number, 687 appeared to be citizens and after confirming with the NRD, they have been given citizenship.
“Meanwhile, 79 are not citizens, 96 still have their status undetermined, and 435 have no information whatsoever,” said Fatimah, who also keeps a watching brief on matters relating to education in the state.
She explained that the database kept details of students to be used as a main basis to provide assistance to underprivileged school students working in the same manner as the ‘eKasih’ database.
“For these 1,297 students, their information would not be entered into the database because they had no identification documents (IDs).
“If their data cannot be entered, it means that they cannot benefit from the various assistance provided by the government such as cash, school books, and uniforms,” she said.
She also said that a working committee made up of the state NRD and state JPN personnel has been formalised to go down to the ground to tackle the problem of undocumented school children.
“We realise that after visiting some district education offices (PPDs), there are also children who are outside the database; meaning they are not registered with it.
“We visit each PPD to give briefings and get statistics and we need those in charge to give us these statistics in detail to get a list ready before a committee meeting so the problem can be attended to straight away.
“We hope to finish this within two years, by which time we hope that there will be no more cases like this,” she said.
According to her, on 17 January a letter was forwarded to the federal government which requested that the NRD and Ministry of Education work together to form a committee to tackle the issue.
Also present during the press conference were her assistant ministers, Puan Hajah Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali (Early Childhood Education and Family Development) and Dr Abdul Rahman Ismail (Welfare and Community Wellbeing).
