By Ashley Sim
SIBU, March 2: Sarawak must get back its education autonomy so that it can set standard procedures to enable stateless or disabled children to attend school, rather than be completely dependent on the federal government’s policies and directives, says Democratic Action Party’s (DAP) Bukit Assek chief Irene Chang.
According to Change in a statement, the recent case of Jeanny Lianna Ating from Lawas had renewed attention on the plight of undocumented children in Sarawak, specifically to the question of whether the current government’s Zero Reject Policy is still in effect.
She said Pakatan Harapan (PH) implemented the Zero Reject Policy in 2019 to ensure that all special needs children and undocumented children had access to education. Prior to the policy’s implementation, she had worked with several families whose children were unable to attend school due to their lack of citizenship.
“Several of them were not enrolled or had dropped out of school and could not secure gainful employment until today, especially for those whose citizenship applications were rejected without any grounds provided.
“This was in essence the dark era for our stateless population, and the State government should ensure that our Sarawak’s children are not propelled back into this predicament and be denied access to this basic and fundamental human right,” Chang said.
She said the forced withdrawal from school of children such as Jeanny due to lack of citizenship status has been a recurring occurrence which posed a serious concern for all undocumented children currently enrolled in school, as well as the families of such children.
As various activists, politicians and concerned parties had pointed out for the past few days, this is in violation of human rights of all children having the right to access to education, the former Bukit Assek assemblywoman added.
“Although the special taskforce known as the Sarawak Special Committee on Citizenship (SSCOC) was set up to help undocumented children to apply for Malaysian citizenship, they should also render their assistance to these undocumented children for them to receive formal education in schools as this is a related problem arising from the state of being undocumented,” said Chang.
She asserted that both the State Education Ministry and the special task force should instruct the Lawas District Education Office to clearly identify the missing documents and assist Jeanny’s family in obtaining them in order for Jeanny to be allowed to return to school immediately after it was reported that her father claimed her citizenship application was already pending at the National Registration Department (NRD). — DayakDaily
