STAGGERING DROPOUT RATE BEFORE SPM

Staggering dropout rate before SPM

KOTA KINABALU September 26, 2012: The Talent Corporation Malaysia Berhad yesterday disclosed that a staggering number of youths had yet to attain their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) before they leave school.

“In public schools, between 2000 and 2010, we saw 500,000 pupils enrolling in Primary One annually. Out of that total, 8,000 left the education system before finishing their Primary Six studies, annually,” said Mohamad Kamal Haji Nawawi, general manager for Malaysian Talents Development of Talent Corporation Malaysia Berhad.

“And between Form One and Form Five, out of the 400,000 students that enrolled in Form One, some 44,000 would leave school annually before completing their Form Five, or Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM),” he said.

The leakages, he said, were alarming as many students were leaving as early as in their primary education and would be ill equipped education-wise to compete in high and good paying jobs.

He further said some 352,000 students would leave Form Five and only 168,000 would go for diploma and certificate programmes, while between 98,000 and 100,000 would enter the degree programme at public universities, every year.

Yet out of the 168,000 who went for their diploma and certificate programmes, 30,000 would not graduate, and out of the 100,000 students who went for their degree programme, only 83,000 actually finished the entire programme while the rest had dropped out.

“We need to address the high incidences of students dropping out of school and tertiary institutes if we are to attain our goal of high income society. We need to reach out to those who dropped out and provide them the avenue for opportunities. These are issues from the (human resource) supply side,” he said.

At the same time, he also mentioned another alarming trend amongst women or female workers in Malaysia.

He said women exceed men in garnering tertiary qualifications.

However, despite their high qualification, many of the women would drop out of the workforce between the ages of 28 and 35 to care for their family and children, he said.

“The alarming trend was not that they leave at this age, but rather because they never return to the workforce after they leave.

“A similar trend has also been recorded in Japan and Korea but the situation there is slightly different as the women re-join the workforce after 35 years of age,” he said.

by Jenne Lajiun