KUCHING: Parents whose children are unable to go to school because of lack of documents, have been urged to send them to school.
Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah, who made the call, explained that starting this year, stateless children had been allowed to attend school.
“Obtaining education is the basic right of every child,” stressed Fatimah during her visit to D’Wira Children Care Centre at No 99, Swee Joo Park in Jalan Sky Garden here yesterday.
She pointed out that the education centre, which started 10 years ago in a semi-detached house at Desa Wira, had moved to a single-storey bungalow and was accepting school dropouts or school children who have never been to school because they had no personal documents.
“Some of them do not have birth certificates and there are also among them whose citizenship has yet to be determined.
“There are many abnormalities here but these should not stop them from going to school. In the past, if they are not Malaysian citizens, they would experience certain difficulties. But now, the Education Ministry has allowed stateless children to enrol in schools,” she said.
On the centre, Fatimah said that foreigners or non-citizens still had to pay a fee of RM120 a year for primary education.
She added that she had enquired with the Education Department whether these children could pay the fee monthly instead of yearly as some of them came from low-income families.
The high fee had caused some of the children to drop out from the school.
“If they can pay the RM120 a year, every month it is only RM12 and that is still affordable.
“They also have to pay insurance amounting to RM169 but it is optional. It does not mean that they cannot go to school if they cannot pay the insurance.
“Our main focus is to ask them to send their children back to school and let them gain knowledge through education because it is the basic right of every child,” said Fatimah.
She also lauded the education centre for providing various levels of education based on the Malaysian school syllabuses.
“It is also very child-centric. I remember there was a child who never went to school and the education centre taught her how to read and write. The child is now in Miri. We could see that she really wanted to study and learn how to read and write.
“She has never been to school so this is the place where she was given the opportunity to learn,” said Fatimah, adding that the child should now be in Primary Four.
She pointed out if there was no intervention or remedial work given, the child would not be able to catch up and would drop out of school again.
“That is the kind of work being done here by Jap Siew Moi, the principal of D’Wira Children Care Centre and this is where the ministry can help,” said Fatimah.
She said D’Wira only charged a student RM20 a month.
“A good Samaritan has allowed them to use the place and rented it out for only RM600 a month,” added Fatimah.
Destiny for Children in Sibu is another care centre which provides education for children without documents or whose births were never registered or registered late.
“The centre also provides free tuition for children. It is church-based and voluntary,” explained the minister.
“We would like to remind parents to register their children’s births. Under the Birth and Death Ordinance, every child’s birth and death must be registered. So we would like parents to remember. It is their responsibility to their children to get them registered as citizens and have their birth certificates, ” she said.
According to Jap Siew Moi, D’Wira Children Care Centre
now has 110 students aged between three and 19. Half of them are still waiting for their documents.
The school has two sessions – morning and afternoon. The school is offering free tuition and education from pre-school upwards to fill the gap.
D’Wira Children Care Centre started at Taman Desa Wira about 10 years ago with the objective of providing education to children who drop out from schools or those who missed out on education because of the circumstances that they are in.
Yap has also helped the children with their documentation and put them in school. About 20 of the students are now in school.
