The happy faces of the Penan children lining up near the jetty at Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Long Lamei provided a welcome relief after a 10 hour journey from Miri.

"Welcome!" they shouted in excitement to greet the 42 participants and organisers of the Outreach Programme.

The programme was organised recently by the Special Education Division of the Education Ministry at this remote school.

It was quite an arduous journey for the participants who had to traverse the undulating terrain apart from the strong currents and rapids.

"This is the longest journey that I had gone through," said Suhaimi Sapari, the program's coordinator. Prior to this he was also involved in several other outreach programmes in other states but only this one the journey took more than five hours.

As for the participants who are from the Education Ministry, Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and several other government departments, the programme not only provided them an opportunity to view the Penan villages and the natural surroundings at Sarawak's Baram district but also to evaluate the community's achievement in education.

According to the initial findings of the group, there are 1,366 Penan students in six primary schools in the Baram district.

Out of the six, SK Long Lamei was picked for the study looking at the high dropout and absentee rates. In fact no students recorded full passes for last year's Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR).

There have been various assumptions for the sad state of affairs. Among others the schools are located far away, there is no awareness on education, students have no proper identification details, no exposure to the outside world, transport, isolation and socio-economic woes.

"We don't want to depend on these assumptions and instead want to get a first hand look at this problem by going down to the field," noted Suhaimi.

Model school set up

Suhaimi noted that the first outlook programme in Baram took place in 2006 at three other Penan settlements - Long Bedian, Long Kevok and Long Lama.

"The findings of the 2006 programme resulted in the setting up of `Sekolah Model Khas Komprehensif K9 (SMKK9)' at Long Bedian that enables Penan students to study from pre-school level to Form Three at the same school," he added.

A subsequent review of the 2006 Programme also indicated that the dropout rate at the three settlements declined drastically, while their achievement in UPSR recorded improvement.

"We are confident that similar success can be attained at Long Lamai if we are able to get first hand information from the community itself on their problems and bring their woes to the attention of the higher authorities," he said.

He also rubbished claims that the outreach programme was organised after the committee under the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry verified claims that female Penan students have been sexually abused.

"We planned to have this outreach programme in Baram long before this issue cropped up. Nonetheless, after the report appeared we took in a representative from the ministry to assist in this programme."

Hostel without bathroom

The racket at SK Long Lamei can be heard as early as 4 am. The Penan children numbering 70 in the hostel were starting to rise and get ready to school.

But their hostel has no bathroom, thus in the cold hours of the morning they were led by a teacher to the river located 100 meters from the hostel to have their bath.

Kelvin was among those who took a dip in the river on that day along with the other students. "No!" he answered quickly when asked by the writer whether the water was really cold.

As for the participants, they had to fetch the rain water collected in big tank and bring it to the pre school block where they were putting up because the water supply there was erratic.

The Assistant Secretary for Suhakam's Education and Promotions Division Hasmah Abdul Manaf pointed out that it was not appropriate to expose the children to the dangers of strong river current.

This goes against the UNICEF's Children's Rights Convention, she said.

"I also find it strange that the hostel plan failed to include bathrooms and this should be noted seriously by the Education Ministry," she said.

The outreach participants also scrutinised the diet of the Penan children at SK Long Lamei.

Hasmah found that the children in the hostel had complained that they have not been getting nutritious meals. She also could not accept the excuse that the supplier brought the food all the way from Miri.

"What's wrong of procuring the vegetable and fish from the locals as this will also provide some income for the locals," she said.

Low awareness on sex education

Touching on sexual abuse involving the Penan minority, Hasmah is of the opinion that the awareness on sex education is very low.

"This school has no counselling teachers, what more specialised teachers to teach this subject. That doesn't mean we have to wait for an expert to come and solve the problem.

"There is no need to waste time in training the teachers in this aspect, the other available teachers can be enlisted to assist," she said.

Hasmah was happy to note that the organisers had enlisted officers from the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry to look into the sexual abuse problem.

"Through the sessions with the students, without wasting much time, the children have learned on what is 'safe touch' and 'unsafe touch'," she said.

Among the other proposal is that the school conducts a background check on the individuals in charge of transporting the children.

"This is because previously there have been cases of sexual abuse involving those sending the children to school," she said.

The Education Ministry should also stop depending on logging firms in the district in providing transport. The ministry instead should allocate funds to appoint trustworthy and reliable local transport service.

Only chance to help

At the final night of the three day stay, the group was entertained by the school children, aged five to 12 years old, and the local community.

However, there were also many still busy looking for more inputs to fulfil the objective of their visit there.

"This may be the only opportunity for me to help them," noted a participant.

More than RM700 has been collected to start a fund to help SK Long Lamei's excellent students.

On the first night, when news reached that a house at Kampung Long Lamai was gutted, more than RM700 was collected as immediate assistance for the affected occupants.

Through the outreach programme, participants for once witnessed for themselves the life of the Penan children in Kampung Long Lamai.

Like how they were greeted by the Penan children when they first arrived at the SK Long Lamei, the children again lined up near the jetty to wish good-bye to the visitors.

A student who was in tears asked: "Cikgu (teacher) would you come back here

again?"

- Bernama