Policies

Out of School Children initiative

Context and Issue

According to the UNICEF and the Ministry of Education (Malaysia), primary enrollment is higher than secondary enrollment. Education for All (EFA) data states that approximately 100,000 children are out of primary school, and another 250,000 are not in secondary schools for various reasons. International organizations and the government are interested in seeing what factors contribute to the number of out-of-school children in Sabah, Malaysia.

Solution

At a higher level, the solution aimed to support countries in reducing or eliminating incidences of out-of-school children using pre-primary, primary, and secondary school datasets as well as household surveys and other data. For instance, based on the data insights, several rationales were identified that resulted in the out-of-school children in Sabah; these barriers were related to socioeconomic factors, and a prominent distinction in terms of non-attendance and not enrolling was based on citizen status. For example, 49.3% of non-citizen students are likely to be out of school at the primary level compared to 1.4% with citizen status. In the case of lower secondary education levels, 69% of non-citizen students are likely to be out of school compared to 1.8% of students with citizen status.

Impact

The development of such a dataset provides an opportunity for the other regions within the country to follow as a template to understand the socio-economic barriers to education.

Analysis

The existing institutional path dependencies of the countries' ministries would play a significant role in effectively implementing the intervention. In addition, other barriers, such as the standard of existing data collection facilities, would also impact the smooth operations during the intervention.