A Question of Access: Education Needs of Undocumented Children in Malaysia

Abstract

In 2002, the Government of Malaysia amended the Education Act of 1996 (Act 550) to, in effect, limit access to free education to Malaysian citizens. This means that children of foreigners who do not have proper documentation but reside in Malaysia cannot attend government schools. Those affected are the children of foreign workers, asylum seekers and refugees. This paper attempts to outline the background to the education needs of Filipino children and map out existing initiatives by non-government organisations to mitigate the problems of illiteracy and poverty. It also attempts to describe the aspirations of these children in terms of education. The first section discusses the circumstances behind being undocumented in East Malaysia, while the second section describes existing local non-government organisation initiatives and the challenges such organisations face in providing free education to undocumented children. The findings are drawn from two fieldwork sessions, conducted in 2006–07 and 2013–14. Both research sessions used observation, semi-structured interviews and focus-group discussions (FGD) with children aged 7–17 years in Sabah, Malaysia. This study finds that children are in a desperate situation as a result of being denied an education. While there are non-formal learning centres available in their communities, these local initiatives are insufficient to provide a clear path to education in towns and rural villages.

Keywords:

• Undocumented children
• Malaysia
• access to education
• education needs
• immigrants

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Southeast Asia Studies Regional Exchange Program (SEASREP Grant Number 2006-EC-02) in 2006–08 and the University of Malaya Research Grant (UMRG RP017B-13SBS) in 2013–15 that enabled me to carry out my fieldwork. I would also like to recognise the assistance given to me by the Embassy of the Philippines in Kuala Lumpur.

Notes

1. During fieldwork, the research team met a 73 year-old woman who told how she had crossed the high seas from Zamboanga del Sur to Sabah via Sandakan. Her experience illustrates that there are more than just a few individuals involved in this type of sojourn.

2. There is no Philippine consulate office in Sabah and there will not be one for as long as the Sabah claim by the Philippines remains unresolved.

3. On my trip to Sandakan from Kota Kinabalu, the bus I was on was stopped four times. At each stop, all of the passengers were required to alight and show their travel documents to the attending authorities. There were four men on the bus whom I later found out had entered Sabah less than three months ago and did not have the required residence visas to stay. One of the men said that he had paid RM50 to get through that stop. Luckily for him, he had the money. He was not quite sure, though, how many more stops there would be before he reached Sandakan.

4. IMM 13 is a visa given to the so-called Filipino refugees who left Mindanao in droves to evade the Mindanao crisis in the 1970s.

5. During my first fieldwork in 2006, the Filipino market (Pasar Filipin) was not officially recognised by the state tourism agency and was left to “take shape” on its own. However, in the last two years, there seems to have been a change of attitude, in the sense that the market is now advertised in local and international tourism brochures.