POLITICIANS and activists have slammed Penang for denying stateless children the right to be enrolled into public schools even though the federal government allows it.

The Penang Education Department continues to demand that a stateless child should either provide a passport or approved Malaysian citizenship status to enable him to access basic education in government schools.

“It seems like the Education Ministry does not have a consistent policy. Or are there influential little Napoleons undermining the authority of the education minister, or is this caused by ignorant officers who do not understand the policy?” said former deputy education minister Teo Nie Ching.

The ministry should rectify the issue immediately and allow stateless children adopted by Malaysians or whose biological parents are Malaysians to study in government schools, she said in a statement.

“This is a simple policy that goes to support the most basic and fundamental principle that the Education Ministry upholds, that is effective access to education indiscriminately,” Teo said.

Civil society group Development of Human Resources for Rural Areas (DHRRA) recently highlighted that six pupils in Penang could not enrol in public schools.

DHRRA said in a statement in a circular issued by the ministry, “non-citizen” children with either one Malaysian parent or adopted by Malaysian parent should be allowed to access Malaysian public school.

The circular has been in effect since January 15, 2018 and Putrajaya has continued to allow stateless children to access education.

Meanwhile, deputy chief minister II P. Ramasamy, who also chairs Penang’s committee on stateless persons, said asking stateless children for their passports is ridiculous as the biological parents are either no longer in the country, or their parents’ country of origin did not issue passports to those born outside the country.

This new policy would mostly affect parents who adopted stateless children.

“Under the previous Pakatan Harapan government, adopted stateless children were only required to present their adoption certificates, a court-affirmed adoption or a Social Welfare Department’s ‘Borang 13’ in order to enrol in government schools.”

He said most biological parents or legal guardians of stateless children are unaware of the procedures to obtain passports for the children. – February 3, 2021.