Almost 80,000 students drop out after primary education

转载自The Sun Daily

Posted on 11 October 2011 – 05:25am

Karen Arukesamy

[email protected]

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 10, 2011): About 70,000 to 80,000 students dropped out of school upon completing their primary level between 2006 to 2010 due to “loss of interest” in studies, Deputy Education Minister Datuk Wee Ka Siong admitted today.

He said these figures of drop-outs are part of the 220,000 primary students, who do not proceed to secondary level.

“However, not all of the 220,000 students dropped out of the schooling system or discontinued their education,” Wee said, adding that 220,000 is from the total of 2.3 million students enrolled at primary level during that period.

He explained, upon completing primary school some 150,000 students enrol into private secondary schools, international schools, and state and community religious schools that are not registered under the Education Ministry.

Wee said the breakdown of enrolment according the different types of schools are private secondary schools 16,422; private Chinese schools 69,842; international schools about 8,000; private religious schools 6,479 and state and community religious schools about 50,000.

“So it all totals to about 150,000. If you extract 150,000 from the total of 220,000 to 230,000, the total students, who dropped out of the schooling system or discontinued their education ranges between 70,000 to 80,000” Wee told a press conference at the Parliament.

He also said these figures do not include the small number of home-schooled students, and those who have travelled overseas with their parents. He said these students drop out mainly because they have “lost interest in studying”.

Admitting that one of the reasons students lose interest is due to the “unattractive” syllabus in secondary schools, Wee said the Education Ministry is working on making the secondary school syllabus “more attractive”.

Asked about government’s measures to reduce the number of drop-outs, he said the ministry is conducting a study called ‘Reaching the Unreached Children: Student Tracking System’ to prepare a data on students who drop out from the education system. This is expected to be completed by end of 2012.

Despite the drop-out rate, he said the government at the moment is not looking into making secondary education compulsory like primary education.

Wee said the government is also preparing a basic vocational education syllabus, which provides 70% practical training for students to be implemented by 2013.