ALOR STAR: The issue of school dropouts in Kedah is not serious as the statistics for such occurrences was small.
State Education and Human Resources Committee chairman Dr Salmee Said said despite the miniscule figures, she still regarded cases of school dropouts as something serious as it should be eradicated among society and the younger generation.
He said in Kedah, there was a total of about 400,000 students in the state, but there were only 79 students who dropped out of schools last year.
“Based on the records of 2018, Kedah recorded a total of 79 dropouts comprising those who lost interest in their studies (45), those who dropped out due to a need to work (14), family problems (12), poverty (5) and due to the long-distance to travel to school (3).
“These figures had dropped from that of the previous year due to various efforts by schools, related agencies and families of the students.
“Among the efforts were home-to-home visits, awareness on the part of school administrations and parenting talks that held with the students’ families that were done with the help of parent-teacher associations,” Dr Salmee told the New Straits Times Press (NSTP) when contacted.
She was responding to the government’s move to review the Education Act to make it mandatory for students to complete schooling from Year One to Form Five, which will be a change from the current provision in the act that only requires pupils to complete their primary-level schooling until Year 6.
Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching had said on Sunday that under the changes, parents who fail to send their children to school could face a fine of up to RM5,000, or six months' jail.
The government’s move could address concerns on school dropouts among youths, which was and a reverse gender gap seen in the country in which there was less boys enrolled in secondary and university-level education.
A Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) report in December described it as ‘lost boys’ phenomenon in the education sector whereby male students either left school early or have low education attainment.
The report stated hat there were 15 per cent more girls than boys in upper secondary education, while at university level, girls comprised up to 70 per cent of the incoming cohort of students at university level.
The Statistics Department also said that youths aged 15 to 19 represented 16 per cent of unemployed persons in the Malaysia in 2017.
Elaborating on the situation in Kedah, Dr Salmee said that students who dropped out of school due to poverty in places such as Langkawi, were due to their interest in earning a living.
She said Langkawi was a tourist destination with plenty of employment opportunities, and this was a motivating factor among students from there who dropped out due to poverty or a lost of interest in studies.
Dr Salmee said some students also quit school due to the long traveling distance for students as some of them thought it was an easy solution to overcome the problem.
“Despite their choice to do that, the school administrations, state govenrment and community leaders must play their roles to help the Welfare Department and Lembaga Zakat Kedah to address such occurances. For those living far away from school, these students could be places in hostels so they can study comfortably.
“But if these students are unwilling to go to school despite all these efforts and advice given, there is nothing we can do to force them to attend school,” she said.