Education and Human Development "Term Paper"

Fighting Poverty for a Better Education in Malaysia 

Introduction

Based on the article Fighting Poverty in Asia and the Pacific, there are nearly 900 million are poor in the whole world, which majority of them come from Asia. In Malaysia, a threshold poverty line income (PLI) has been used to determine the rate of absolute poverty. This PLI is based on what is considered to be the minimum consumption requirements of a household for basic living needs such as food, clothing, and other non-food items, such as rent, fuel, and power. As for me, poverty is multidimensional. It is, of course, more than a lack of income, in which it is also associated with lack of access to health services and information, basic education, clean water, shelter, as well as sanitation. Hence, fighting poverty is crucial because when the economy of a certain country grows, it will somehow increase the income of population; hence reduce the number of poor people.

Poverty – Definition and View

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) studies on poverty depend on the income level, where the people who suffer from extreme poverty are those who bear less than $1 a day. In Malaysia, the measurement of poverty line is determined by comparing the total income earned by the family with the standard income required to meet minimum needs for food, clothing, health, education and other socio-economic needs. It implies that, poverty is also measured on the lack of chances that a person is entitled to.

Students’ Education Performance in Sustaining Economic Growth

In beating poverty, apart from sustainable economic growth; social development and macroeconomic management and good governance were focused as well. Thus, in order to have a successful economic development, education plays the most vital role. The consensus was obtained during a summit regarding poverty and education is that, one of the key vehicles stimulating the development of economies is the education of children (UNESCO, 2009).  In making sure that all children receive an equal education opportunity, Malaysia government has always been concerned in giving additional special assistance to rural disparities in education performance. Therefore, in order to reduce the performance gap between rural and urban areas, Malaysian education programmes have continued to emphasize increasingly on equity and quality, accessibility, strengthening the delivery system, as well as improving the achievement of rural students (Malaysia, 2003: 102).

As in my opinion, extensive investment in health and education is believed to significantly contribute to the economic growth and welfare. According to Millennium Development Goal (MDG), in order to eradicate poverty, one government should focus on improving the health and education of the population as a key strategy of the country’s long-term plan. For example, free schooling is provided at the primary and secondary levels of school. Besides, with the aim to match with the education expansion plans, schemes for the poor and low-income students were introduced in the Third Malaysia Plan. In this particular plan, students from poor and low-income families were placed in health and nutritional programmes at schools and provided with textbooks on loan. Furthermore, the provision of free education and training was extended to targeted groups, such as the Orang Asli. There was a special education programme that has been implemented to help Orang Asli students, particularly in primary education. Moreover, qualified Orang Asli individuals were also encouraged to join the teaching profession in order to increase the attendance of Orang Asli students at school. This is one positive strategy done by the government in order to reduce the gap of education performance between rural and urban areas.

Poor Parents’ Awareness and Perceptions towards Education

            As the main concern in economic growth is providing equal education opportunity to all children, the cost of education becomes significant to all parties, especially the parents. Parents have to deal with a number of costs with the aim of educating their children. These include common aspects such as school uniform, school fees, books, pocket money for meals and so on. While many of these are quite usual because they are determined by the schools and the government, there are also costs which vary among students, namely extra reading materials and tuition. The “zero exam fees” plan as stated in the 2007 Budget, which would affect 5.5 million pupils, is a step towards free and compulsory education – a direction many developing countries have taken (Osman and Rajah, 2011 : 63). Generally, the fault in the education system in Malaysia is the wide gap between the academic performance of students in rural and urban regions. Therefore, by upgrading the teaching and learning facilities, and assigning more competent teachers in rural schools, it is hoped that this continued efforts by the government can reduce the performance gap between the academic performance of rural and urban students.

            Despite all the efforts employed by the government, yet a good and effective education essentially starts from home. Parents still possess the major role in ensuring their children receive sufficient education. Statistical evidence generally supports the view that students who perform better in examinations are those from better endowed families. Nevertheless, due to restrictions of parental educational skills, financial resources, and available time, low income parents often have difficulty becoming dynamic partners in their children’s education (Hawkins, 2001). In addition, children who live in poor neighbourhood are found to perform less positively than children who live in rich neighbourhood or urban areas. However, for poverty to have an impact, other than to evaluate the extent to which these schooling costs place a financial burden on poor and rural parents, it is also important to examine the impact of parental income on student performance (Osman and Rajah, 2011). In my opinion, the burden of providing education is not only explained by the entire cost, but also whether or not the parents could afford to pay the cost. Or in other words, it depends on the income of the parents and also the number of children that they have to support in schools. Besides, there are also affordable parents who send their children to private school, with the hope to get better education. Hence, any higher income parents would not be hesitating in providing extra expenses for the sake of their children’s education.

Furthermore, based on (Osman and Rajah, 2011), most parents think that education was important for their children. But nearly 15 per cent overall, regardless of urban or rural parents, did not give much hope that their children’s education could lead them to better lives in future. Even with this thought in minds, they are still putting some efforts to educate the children regardless of what benefits they might have in the future; if their children are able to cope and be successful in education. This somehow makes me realize that most parents, particularly in rural areas, sending their children to school with some sort of slight awareness of the importance of education, particularly in beating poverty. In terms of school expenditure provided by affordable parents, it is seen that schooling children who benefited from higher educational expenses tend to achieve higher examination results, which somehow would lead to the agreement that sufficient expenditure on education, would likely produce students with better academic results (Osman and Rajah, 2011). I would somehow agree to this study as how the phenomena in Malaysia nowadays, most students who obtained excellent results in examinations are those who attend private tuitions. Undoubtedly, they must come from higher income parents who can afford them extra tuition fees.

Fighting Poverty

            According to MDP, apart from increasing the productivity of the poor, poverty in Malaysia can be reduced by first targeted to the development of education and health facilities, especially at the primary level, and by provide them extra chances to access to the wealth. Hence, one of the strategic poverty-reducing approaches taken by the government is channelling public investment into education, health and basic infrastructure, especially in rural regions, in order to raise the standard of living among the poor is one undeniably encouraging effort. Apart from that, women always give significant contribution to the national development (Rohayu, Noor Sharipah, Yusmawati, Maziana and Abdul Rasid, 2001). Thus, women, especially who are the mothers somehow embrace major role in helping their family, as well as the society to fight poverty. This would lead to another worthy plan, in which the encouragement of women in becoming entrepreneurs. With reference to 9^th Malaysia Plan, under the loan scheme initiative undertaken by Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM), women in rural areas were also provided with small business outlets premises and workshops to assist their participation in small businesses. This effort somehow would support in upgrading their family income, thus will lead to a better living.

Conclusion

            It is hoped that poverty can be successfully reduced in order to make better living for Malaysians, especially those who live in rural areas. It is very crucial for Malaysians in fighting poverty so that the academic performance of the students will be increased. With the increasing of academic performance, there will be a positive economic growth of our country, and the cycle goes on. There were study, which showed the positive relation between earning and higher education in Malaysia, which ranges around the threshold of poverty (Mok, Gan and Sanyal, 2007). It is believed that with higher academic achievement, one will be able to get better job and higher salary, compared to the one who has a slightly lower academic achievement. On top of it, policy implementation and country’s administration play important role to gain a victory in poverty reduction. Any programmes or policies implemented in the national level should be implemented more strictly in the region level. Finally, I think that another continuous and inspiring effort in fighting poverty in Malaysia is from the private sectors as well as NGO, who are always at the front line, to support the government in this issue. Malaysian, generally look forward to see that this cooperation will be fruitful in order to eradicate poverty in our country, hence will make Malaysia a prosperous country in terms of economic growth, social development as well as macroeconomic management.

References:

1.    Hanushek, E.A. (1995) “Interpreting Recent Research on Schooling in Developing Countries”, World Bank Research Observer, 10 (August).

2.    Hawkins, H.G. (2001) Understanding Poor Performance: Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT) Scores and Poverty, Clemson, SC: Clemson University.

3.    Malaysia (2003) Mid-Term Review of the Eighth Malaysia Plan 2001-2005, Kuala Lumpur: Percetakan Nasional Berhad.

4.    Mok, T.Y., Gan, C. and Sanyal, A. (2007) “The Determinants of Urban Household Poverty in Malaysia”, Journal of Social Sciences 3 (4): 190-196, New Zealand : Science Publications.

5.    Osman Rani Hassan and Rajah Rasiah (2011) “Poverty and Student Performance in Malaysia”, International Journal of Institutions and Economies Vol. 3, No. 1, April 2011, pp. 61-76.

6.    Rohayu Roddin, Noor Sharipah Sultan Sidi, Yusmawati Yusof, Maziana Mohamad and Abdul Rasid Abd Razzaq (2009) “Poverty Alleviation Among Single Mother In Malaysia: Building Entrepreneurship Capacity”, International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 17.

7.    Siwar, C. (1988). Isu-Isu Ekonomi (Economic Issues). Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

8.    UNESCO (2009) “Education”.  Available at: http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php URL_ID=45941&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html, 24^th May 2014.