According to the Education Act 1996 (Act 550) Section 29A Subsection 2 (compulsory primary education), every parent who is a Malaysian citizen residing in Malaysia shall ensure that if his child has attained the age of six years on the first day of January of the current school year that child is enrolled as a pupil in a primary school in that year and remains a pupil in a primary school for the duration of the compulsory education.

A parent who contravenes Subsection (2) shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.

Even though  our legal system has set up the requirement for compulsory primary education, there are still 4 percent of students above six years old who have never had the chance to enter into the primary school for education, according to the preliminary report on the Education Blueprint 2013-2025.

This is a very serious problem and it need to be addresed. The preliminary report on the Education Blueprint also provides a chart showing the breakdown of the percentage of people receiving education into four categories, the first category is people above age of 15 who have never entered school and for  2010 it was 9 percent, the second category is people above age of 15 who have received primary education and for 2010 it was 15 percent, and the third category is people above 15 who have received secondary education, 61 percent, and the fourth category is people who have received tertiary education and it was 15 percent.

Taking into the consideration of the age structure of the Malaysia population that comprises   29.6 percent of the group from  0-14 years:  65.4 percent of the group from 15-64 years and 5 percent of 65 years and above, it is not difficult for us to come to the conclusion that there is still a large number of youngsters not completing primary and secondary education .

What needs to be done to address the school dropout problem in our country?

Should more residential school be built to cater for the needs of fishermen and indigenous people who stay in remote areas? Should more allocations be given to single parents who cannot afford to send  their child even for primary education? Should we implement vocational education that allowd student to also work while they undertake their education and training? These are the among the problem that needs our remedial action.

The purpose of education is to give an opportunity to every student to receive education to develop their potential and also to give every one to serve the country after completing their education. Based on this principle I therefore suggest that the Civics subject be introduced as a compulsory subject to replace the History and Moral subjects in order to for us keep pace with the progress of the world and to lessen the study load of our students.