ALOR STAR: Effective immediately, parents or guardian of stateless children in Kedah can now enrol their children into public primary school by sending in their application to any District Education Office (PPD) in the state.
State Education Committee chairman Datuk Tajul Urus Mat Zin said the directive was in line with the announcement made by Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah recently that all stateless children in Kedah should be allowed to enrol in public schools in the state.
Tajul said to expedite the process, that one of the parents or a legal guardian of the stateless child must submit a document to prove that one of them is a Malaysian citizen, and attached it together with a support letter from a village head or the Village Security and Development Committee (JKKK) chairman.
“This is in accordance with a circular issued by the Education Ministry in 2009, stipulating that stateless children could register at any government or government-aided school if one of the parents is a Malaysian citizen,” he said after a meeting with all district education officers in the state regarding the matter, this afternoon.
“We have agreed that the PPDs in the state would accept the application and forward it to the state Education Department.
“The process should not take long as long as the required documentations are attached together with the application,” he said.
However, Tajul stressed that the enrolment is open only for primary school level and parents must solve the issue pertaining to their child’s citizenship application.
Recently, Ahmad Bashah, in response to the New Straits Times front-page report on the plight of a stateless boy Tan Yao Chun from Changlun, had made it possible for stateless children in the state to enrol in its public schools.
Tan’s application was initially rejected by the state’s Education Department as he does not have a birth certificate.
It was reported that the boy was born at a hospital in Hatyai but his father had failed to register his birth with the Malaysian Consulate General office in Songkhla, resulting in the rejection of his birth certificate application with the National Registration Department.