CHILDREN dropping out of school is most prevalent among low-income households, and the lack of detailed statistics makes it hard for welfare organisations to assist the families affected, said MySkills Foundation, which aids at-risk youths.

There is no exact or updated number of school dropouts in Malaysia, and MySkills estimates that 20% of school-going children drop out before reaching Form Five.

In contrast, Education Ministry figures in 2011 showed that on average, the rate of dropouts for the 2006-2010 period stood at 1.32% at the primary school level and 9.42% at the secondary school level.

The figures did not include students who went to private, religious and international schools.

MySkills chief executive officer Devasharma Gangadaran said the problem was understated as the official dropout rate mostly reflected those who opted out of secondary school.

“The problem is already present among primary school pupils, but it doesn’t get acknowledged. It only gets highlighted when the students are in secondary school.

“The problems are the same in urban and rural areas, but urban groups are more vulnerable,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Figures from the Statistics Department last year showed that there were 2,683,992 primary school pupils in government and government-aided schools in 2015.

The number of secondary school students in government and government-aided schools stood at 2,072,162 in the same year.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child Concluding Observations in 2007 report, meanwhile, estimated that 125,000 Malaysian children were not in school and did not have access to primary education, adding that the figure did not include refugee, stateless and undocumented children.

MySkills director Pasupathi Sithamparam said the foundation only had outdated data on Indian students.

In this group, nearly 7,000 students drop out of school every year before reaching Form Five.

Enrolment of Standard One Indian students in national and Tamil vernacular schools stood at 35,000 in 2011, but five years later, when the same cohort was due to sit for SPM, only 28,000 took the exam.

“(Our data is) only for the Indian community. What about Chinese and Malay children? I believe the number is higher because when our education system expels students, we don’t know what happens to them,” said Pasupathi.

System is failing children

Dropping out of school was a pattern likely to repeat itself in families where the parents did not finish their schooling, Pasupathi said, citing a Khazanah Research Institute study last year.

The study found that less than 10% of Indian children born to parents who dropped out of primary school, or never went to school, were able to further their studies until the tertiary level.

Other reasons for dropping out of school include dysfunctional homes, an unhealthy environment and poor academic performance, but Devasharma said weaknesses in the welfare and education systems were also to blame.

“Learning disabilities are not diagnosed in primary school. Our education assessment is very judgmental, because we only have one system to assess.

“There is no support system to facilitate schooling (among poor families). If the children don’t go to school, nobody cares. They just think because the parents are like that, that’s why the children are behaving like that.

“The education system doesn’t have a safety net for dropouts before SPM. The system is failing the kids, failing those who don’t perform or those who come from poor families. If the children come from rich families, however, they will be sent elsewhere.

“When you expel kids because of disciplinary reasons, where are the safety nets for them? The government must have a special programme for dropouts, or we must have a system that can take care of them before they are expelled,” he said, urging the government to expand programmes like GiatMara, which provides technical and vocational studies.

Harder on the poor

Devasharma said school dropouts were also likely to be involved in drugs and gangsterism, with some being as young as 10.

He said children from the bottom 40% of households (B40) group needed more remedial intervention compared with those from families in the middle- to upper-income groups, who could afford more options if their children were at risk.

“The B40 group needs a lot of attention because of the lack of opportunities. The (tendency) towards gangsterism won’t be seen at the primary school level, but will (manifest) in secondary school.

“So, they are never seen as at-risk youths, because once they are older, they end up at the police station, detention centres or in rehab.

“What can you expect from single mothers or parents in the B40 group? The children usually live with their grandparents (as the parents are working). And in some cases, if it weren’t for their grandparents, who act as a support system, most of the children would be (even more) neglected.

“I even had a case study where a father had five wives and 32 children, and they all lived in one house. The girls in the family got married when they were between 16 and 18, and their husbands were often in prison.” – October 18, 2017.