Ministry drafting bill on compulsory secondary education

PARLIAMENT | The Education Ministry is in the midst of drafting a bill to raise the mandatory school age from primary school to secondary school.

Deputy Education Minister Lim Hui Ying said that the ministry has initiated stakeholder engagements with relevant government agencies, Suhakam, National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) and NGOs.

The new policy would require children to study up to the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) level.

Lim was responding to Lee Chean Chung (Pakatan Harapan-Petaling Jaya) who asked if Malaysia would raise compulsory education from primary school to Form Three in secondary school to prevent dropouts.

She told the Dewan Rakyat today that dropouts among students in both primary and secondary schools have taken an overall downward trend from 2019 to 2022.

At a primary level, the dropout rate among students declined from 0.12 percent in 2019 to 0.07 percent in 2022.

However, at the secondary level, the dropout rate decreased from 1.14 percent in 2019 to 0.99 percent in 2022.

“From 2019 to 2022, student dropouts at the primary school level showed an increase among Standard 3, 4 and 6.

“At the secondary school level, there is an increase in the student dropout rate for Form 2 in the period from 2019 to 2022, while there is a decrease in the dropout rate involving Form 3, 4 and 5 for the period in question,” she said.

During this period, Lim said that there were no dropouts among female students in primary school, whereas dropout rates of male students decreased from 0.16 percent in 2019 to 0.09 in 2022.

Dropout rates among male students also decreased in secondary school, at 0.72 percent in 2019 compared with 0.29 percent in 2022.

But female students who dropped out increased from 0.40 percent in 2019 to 0.71 percent in 2022, Lim said.

She added that the main factors identified that led to these dropouts were due to lack of interest, work obligations, family issues, marriage and lack of access due to distance.

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