IPOH: A total of 427 stateless and undocumented children were allowed to go to school this year.
State Education, Technology, Science and Environmental Committee chairman Dr Abdul Aziz Bari said the state Education Department received 444 applications - 81 were approved without condition while another 346 were approved with conditions.
“As we can see from this figure, 96 per cent of the applications have been approved as stipulated under the Education Act 1966,” he said at the 14th state Legislative Assembly in Bangunan Perak Darul Ridzuan here today.
He said this in response to a question from Teja assemblyman Ng Shy Ching.
Abdul Aziz said the state government had also formed a special task force involving several departments including Education, National Registration, Islamic Religious, village chiefs and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
“Since the task force was formed, we had two meetings and we found that there are several reasons that contributed to this matter (stateless children).
"This includes unregistered marriages, locals marrying foreigners and poverty.
“I also believe that this problem due to era globalisation,” said Abdul Aziz who is also the chairman of the task force.
The Tebing Tinggi assemblyman also said Kinta district recorded the highest number of stateless children with 147 cases, followed by Manjung (65) and Larut, Matang and Selama as well as Hilir Perak (33).
Abdul Aziz said the NGOs' cooperation was vital to help obtain more information to tackle this issue.
In January, a stateless seven-year-old girl from Grik was finally able to enrol at Sekolah Kebangsaan Ganda Temenggor with the help of the state government, after her case was highlighted in the media.
Abdul Aziz added that there were several cases of stateless children in Perak, and he hoped with the committee in place, more of them would get a chance to go to school.