Education ministry to review rules on children’s school admission

 

Education minister Fadhlina Sidek says the amendment will give all children access to education without compromising national sovereignty. (Bernama pic)

KUALA LUMPUR: The education ministry is looking into amending the rules on school admission to ensure children, including non-citizens and the undocumented, have access to education.

Minister Fadhlina Sidek said the amendment to the Education Regulations (Admission of Pupils to School, Register Keeping and Conditions for Retaining Pupils at School) 1998 would apply to admission to government and government-aided schools.

“This amendment will ensure that children in this country have access to education, guided by the existing laws, without compromising the country’s sovereignty and constitution.

“It includes non-citizen children, with undetermined citizenship status and children without identification documents who were previously not included under the regulation,” she said in winding up the debate on the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) annual report for her ministry in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Fadhlina said the ministry was in the midst of looking into ways to allow refugee children to enrol in schools through this amendment.

Meanwhile, Fadhlina said the ministry would not tolerate and had always been proactive in dealing with the spread of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) ideology in schools.

She said various cross-ministerial programmes related to education on sexual and reproductive health awareness had been implemented.

She said the ministry had always placed emphasis on instilling moral values, good manners and integrity in students. - FMT