Poverty and primary education of the Orang Asli children

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4 Poverty and primary education
of the Orang Asli children
Bemen Win Keong Wong and
Kiky Kirina Abdillah
The Orang Asli in Malaysia
One of the objectives listed in the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013–2025
(MEB) is to “increase investment in physical and teaching resources for students
with specific needs” (Ministry of Education, 2013, p. E-11) including Orang
Asli children. The Malaysian Education Blueprint (Ministry of Education, 2013,
p. E-12) states,
Orang Asli students and other minority groups, and students with physical
or learning disabilities will receive additional support so that they can enjoy
the same educational opportunities. By 2025, these students will all go to
schools with the facilities and equipment needed to create a conducive and
supportive learning environment. They will be taught by teachers who have
received additional training to help them understand their students’ specific
contexts and challenges, and the teaching strategies required to address
them. These students will also be supported by an expanded network of
counsellors, therapists, and teaching assistants, as required.
The school drop-out rate for Orang Asli students is very much higher compared
to the national average resulting in poorer educational outcomes for this group
(Ministry of Education, 2013; Nicholas, 2006). According to the Malaysian
Education Blueprint, “only 30% of Orang Asli students complete secondary school,
less than half the national average of 72%” (Ministry of Education, 2013).
Compared to the national average of 87 per cent, only 61 per cent of Orang
Asli students pass the core subjects in the primary school national examinations
(Ministry of Education, 2013).
The Orang Asli are one of the severely poor groups in Malaysia. Nicholas
et al. (2010, p. 45) highlight this point:
Statistics provided in the Government’s 10th Malaysia Plan (2011–2015)
. . . reveal that 50% of the 29,990 Orang Asli households in existence live
below the poverty line. Of these, 5700 households (19%) are considered
to be hardcore poor. In contrast, the national poverty rate is 3.8% with
0.7% being hardcore poor.
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 55
In this chapter, we look at some of the sociocultural factors that contribute to
the Orang Asli children’s poor educational outcomes. In the recent Malaysian
Education Blueprint 2013–2025, “creativity”, “innovation”, “knowledge”,
“skills”, “globally competitive”, “critical, creative and innovative thinking skills”
are listed as the characteristics of the Malaysian student for 21st century Malaysia
in the neoliberal global economy (Ministry of Education, 2013). Six key attributes
listed in the MEB as being needed by every Malaysian student to be globally
competitive in the neoliberal economy include leadership skills, thinking skills,
knowledge, bilingual proficiency, ethics and spirituality, and national identity
(pp. E-10–E-11). Yet the Orang Asli children in Malaysia are not even able to
compete with other Malaysian students on basic education and social indicators
as they are lacking in the basic necessities in life and live in the circumstances
of hardcore poverty. In addition, logging and deforestation activities by the
Malaysian government and private companies continue to deprive the Orang
Asli of their economic resources and threaten their livelihood. The Malaysian
government has not been successful in lifting the Orang Asli out of hardcore
poverty for years. While the government provides various programs and assis-
tance, including the Department of Orang Asli Development’s (JAKOA) Stra-
tegic Development Plan, the Orang Asli continue to be further marginalized
and discriminated on in Malaysia in addition to being one of the hardcore poor
groups in the country.
The Orang Asli (Original Peoples) compose 0.5 per cent of the present
Malaysian population and are mainly located in Peninsular Malaysia (Andaya &
Andaya, 2001; Nicholas, 2000). Archaeological and historical evidence indicates
that prior to the arrival of the Malays, there were disparate groups of people
comprising hunters, harvesters and gatherers scattered across the Malay Peninsula
(Andaya & Andaya, 2001; Nah, 2003). Collectively, these indigenous groups
are known as the Orang Asli or Original Peoples in present-day Malaysia. The
Orang Asli are Bumiputeras. As noted by Nah (2003), there is a hierarchy of
power within the Bumiputera category, with the Malay–Muslims at the top of
the economic and political hierarchy. Non-Malay Bumiputeras, especially the
Orang Asli, do not enjoy the same social and economic privileges as the
Malay–Muslim Bumiputeras. In the Peninsula States, for example, Malay Bumi-
putera are clearly in the political ascendancy in relation to both Orang Asli
Bumiputera and other non-Malay Bumiputeras (Andaya & Andaya, 2001).
Most Orang Asli communities lived closely to, or within forested areas. They
had subsistence economies supplemented by trade or sale of forest products
(Endicott, 2016). However, since the 1980s, most Orang Asli groups have been
disrupted and dispossessed from their traditional lands through logging, develop-
ment projects and government-sponsored re-groupment schemes (Endicott,
2016). They were being resettled because their lands were needed for activities
such as logging, mining, construction of dams, golf courses and new develop-
ment projects. Effects from the resettlement and re-groupment schemes have
resulted in the loss of political and cultural autonomy for the Orang Asli. A
number of Orang Asli communities has been grouped into a limited land area
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56 Bemen Wong and Kiky Kirina Abdillah
in these re-groupment schemes. There is an increase in the number of Orang
Asli with a smaller subsistence base that includes reduced access to water, food
and other subsistence material. These schemes have clearly not been successful
in moving the Orang Asli out of their vicious poverty cycle.
Since Independence in 1963, the Malaysian government has adopted a policy
of integration and assimilation of the Orang Asli into Malaysian society. However,
this policy of integration has come to mean “ringing them into the market
economy, asserting political control over them, and assimilating them into the
Malay–Muslim ethnic category” (Endicott & Denton, 2004, p. 2). The political
reason underpinning this policy of absorbing Orang Asli into the Malay popula-
tion appears to be to eliminate a category of people arguably ‘more indigenous’
than the Malay–Muslims (Nah, 2003; Nicholas, 2000; Subramaniam, 2015).
There is some historical evidence that the Orang Asli were in the Malaya
Peninsula before the Malays. This evidence is refuted by the Malay government
authorities, as this undermines the Bumiputera indigenous status. Most of the
Orang Asli continue to strongly resist government pressures to turn them into
Malay–Muslims. This resistance has resulted in their further marginalization
within Malaysian society (Nicholas, 2000, 2006).
This policy of integration and assimilation includes programs to introduce
cash-crop agriculture so as to enable the Orang Asli to participate in the global
neoliberal economy. There are also educational programs in which the Orang
Asli go to national schools with national curriculums. The social organization
of the Orang Asli community has also been transformed with the community
no longer deciding on their leadership. Instead the headmen for the Orang Asli
community are appointed by the Department of Orang Asli Development
(JAKOA). After decades of intervention by the Malaysian government and
JAKOA and its predecessors, the socio-economic status of the Orang Asli has
deteriorated further. In addition, there continues to be a decline in their tradi-
tional structure and the content of Orang Asli society and autonomy.
JAKOA or its predecessors, including the Department of Orang Asli Affairs,
is a multifunctional federal agency which develops strategies and programs for
the Orang Asli (Nicholas, 2006; Subramaniam, 2015). This department has
always been headed by a non-Orang Asli and staffed by a majority of non-Orang
Asli employees, mainly Malays (Subramaniam, 2015). The JAKOA Strategic
Development Plan does not focus on empowering Orang Asli through effective
consultation and self-determination (Subramaniam, 2015). The Orang Asli are
not consulted on the resettlement schemes, choice of commercial crops grown,
economic activities to be undertaken or educational programs for their children.
Non-recognition of Orang Asli customary lands, territories and resources also
prevail. Many JAKOA officers are still not well-versed in Orang Asli customs,
culture and issues (Subramaniam, 2015; Suhakam, 2010).
Since the 1980s, the integrationist approach also focused on assimilation
through the introduction of the dakwah (Islamic missionary activity) or the
process of Islamizing Orang Asli (Nicholas, 2000; Subramaniam, 2015). Nicholas
noted that
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 57
[t]he assimilationist tendencies, best epitomized by the publicly expressed
intention of converting all Orang Asli within the next ten years, undermine
whatever genuine intentions the government may have for the well-being
of the Orang Asli. At the very least, it brings the justification for attention
towards Orang Asli one full circle – back to the early days of the British
colonial government when the Orang Asli were merely regarded as ripe
objects for the zeal of religious missionaries.
(Nicholas, 1996, p. 166)
The Malaysian government, including the JAKOA, adopts ethnicized neoliberal
policies (Joseph, Chapter 1 in this book) in wanting to achieve high-income
status and be globally competitive in the neoliberal economy while maintaining
the political dominancy of the Malay–Muslims in the government/public sectors
and political domains through the successor New Economic Policy (NEP)
programs and policies for Bumiputeras. While the Orang Asli are categorized
as Bumiputeras, they clearly do not have the same indigenous status as the
Malay – Muslims in relation to economic and social affirmative policies and
privileges (Nah, 2003; Nicholas, 2000; Subramaniam, 2015). As discussed earlier,
JAKOA and the Malaysian government continue to impose their own priorities
on the socioeconomic and educational development of the Orang Asli with lack
of consultation with the Orang Asli and non-recognition of Orang Asli customs
and traditions.
In this chapter, we also look at the ways in which the Malaysian government
and the JAKOA continue to marginalize and disadvantage the Orang Asli
children through their educational policies and practices.
Education and the Orang Asli children
Several economic, geographic, and cultural factors contribute to Orang Asli
students’ poor educational performance in Malaysian schools. Higher poverty
rates and the tendency to live in remote locations means that many Orang Asli
students do not attend preschool and therefore they start from a low literacy
and numeracy base in Year 1 (Ministry of Education, 2013; Nicholas, 2006).
In addition, Bahasa Malaysia which is the medium of instruction in the national
education system is not the mother tongue for most Orang Asli students. The
existing teacher training program also does not prepare teachers and educators
for the complexities of working with Orang Asli communities. The educational
assistance for the Orang Asli through the JAKOA is minimal and not sufficient
to help them in their children’s schooling for example with school fees, trans-
portation, textbooks and extracurricular activities (Nicholas, 2006).
Orang Asli communities and children lack some of the basic necessities in
relation to educational and social resources to move them out of the vicious
cycle of poverty (Karubi et al., 2013; Kenayathulla, 2013; Nicholas et al., 2010).
Orang Asli children do not have electricity during the day and night to do their
studies and other activities. They do not have the access or money to buy
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58 Bemen Wong and Kiky Kirina Abdillah
educational toys, study and reading materials and to watch educational pro-
grammes on television. Their parents are not educated and are unable to influence
their children’s learning process and academic performance. Orang Asli families
spend less in private tutoring as compared to other ethnic groups in Malaysia
mainly because of the low level of income and literacy of the head of the
household.
There are also major differences in the pedagogy and ways of learning within
the Orang Asli community. Research indicates that Orang Asli children learn
differently compared to other Malaysian children (Endicott, 2016; Karubi et al.,
2013; Nicholas, 2006). They learn through the indigenous language, arts, rituals,
folklore and taboos which do not have a fixed syllabus and timetable of learning.
The village is the schoolhouse and the teachers are the parents, extended family,
elders, neighbours and the community. Orang Asli children learn about the
riches of their environment including the forest from their elders (Nicholas,
2006). The current Malaysian school curriculum, including the pedagogy and
teaching approaches in the national school system, does not suit them and
disadvantages them (Nicholas et al., 2010). When the children enter Primary
1, they take a relatively longer time than other students to catch up, given that
they are not at all fluent in Bahasa Malaysia and lack basic educational amenities
at home. A majority of the Orang Asli children do not have the chance to
attend kindergarten before entering Primary 1, and this drawback is reflected
in their slow learning process of speaking, reading and writing. Abdull et al.
(2011) found in their research that the majority of the Orang Asli students
have problems reading Bahasa Malaysia. They measured the students’ ability
by looking at their reading, writing and numeracy skills. They found that the
Orang Asli children had good skills in singing, playing and eating.
Warren et al. (2010) conducted a study on indigenous students in rural
Queensland (Australia) and concluded that teachers should take into consid-
eration the remote background of these indigenous students in developing
their curriculum and pedagogical approaches. The approach to teaching main-
stream urban students is different from teaching rural indigenous students. It
is argued that contextualization is one of the key components in teaching
indigenous students from low socio-economic backgrounds. In fact, the Ministry
of Education, Malaysia, examined the results from the development of a
contextualized curriculum tailored to Orang Asli in 2007 and found that the
students learning with this curriculum were more confident, and achieved
higher levels of literacy and numeracy (Ministry of Education, 2012). However,
the report on education of Orang Asli students produced by the Human Rights
Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam, 2010) stated that the attendance rates of
the Orang Asli students were still not consistent with those of other groups
after the implementation of the new curriculum (Suhakam, 2010). The cur-
riculum is called the Primary School Curriculum for Orang Asli and Penan
Students (Kurikulum Orang Asli dan Penan – KAP). In 2007, the first phase
of KAP was implemented in six schools, and in 2008 the second phase added
another 14 schools (Table 4.1).
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 59
In general, KAP is divided into two levels. Level 1 is for Primary Years 1 to
3, and Level 2 is for Primary Year 4 to 6. In KAP level 1, the main themes are
“Come to School” and “Come and Learn”. The main focus is to prepare the
indigenous students to use effectively the national language, Bahasa Malaysia,
to read, write and count. In KAP level 2, the main focus is to help students
apply their knowledge, skills and values into other subjects such as English,
Mathematics, Science, Visual Art, Moral Education, Culture and Heritage and
others through the use of indigenous pedagogy (Bahagian Pembangunan Kuri-
kulum, 2015).
Similar to Warren et al.’s study, Yen (2009) found that the indigenous students
in the Taiwanese context could not catch up with others using the syllabus due
to the irrelevance of the curriculum to the students’ personal lives. According to
Nettleton (2008a), due to poverty and the remote location of Timbang Island in
Sabah, the primary school enrolment has decreased dramatically between 1991
and 2001. In order to address the enrolment problem, a new program called
DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) has been introduced in 30 schools across
Sabah and Sarawak with collaboration between United Nations Children’s Educa-
tion Fund (UNICEF) and the Malaysian Ministry of Education. The main objectives
of the program are to make learning interesting and increase students’ attendance
at the school. In this program, teachers use educational games to attract the interest
of the children and promote reading habits. Furthermore, students in this program
learn pronunciation, vocabulary and spelling through computers.
Johari (2002) found in his study that Malaysian children from upper and
middle-class families fit in easily and adapt themselves relatively faster in school
Table 4.1 Schools using the Primary School Curriculum for Orang Asli and Penan
(KAP)
2007 (Phase 1) 2008 (Phase 2)
• SK Pos Bersih, Perak
• SK Busut Baru, Selangor
• SK Sungai Sampo, N.S
• SK Tanah Abang, Johor
• SK Pasir Linggi, Kelantan
• SK Sungai Mas, Pahang
• SK Sungai Tiang, Gerik, Perak
• SK Pos Perwor, Perak
• SK Senibai, Negeri Sembilan
• SK Kampung Kudong, Johor
• SK Lemoi, Pahang
• SK Sungai Berua, Terengganu
• SK Sungai Pergam, Terengganu
• SK Tohoi, Kelantan
• SK Long Sait, Baram, Sarawak
• SK Long Lamei, Baram, Sarawak
• SK Long Jekitan, Baram, Sarawak
• SK Long Luteng, Baram, Sarawak
• SK Long Kevok, Baram, Sarawak
• SK Lusong Laku, Belaga, Sarawak
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60 Bemen Wong and Kiky Kirina Abdillah
compared to those who come from poor families including the Orang Asli
children. Children from upper and middle-class families have access to educational
resources and opportunities that clearly put them ahead of children from poor
families such as the Orang Asli, who are struggling to meet basic needs. Salleh
and Ahmad (2009) in their study found that Orang Asli parents see the school
as a place where they can send their children for free food, given that they
struggle with their daily subsistence due to displacement caused by logging and
deforestation.
The distance between school and home, and the experience of the teachers
have a significant impact in the Orang Asli students’ academic performance
(Johari & Nazri, 2007; Nettleton, 2008b). When the school is far from the
homes of the Orang Asli children, enrolment and attendance decreases. In some
instances, the local education authority provides a van to transport the students
from home to school and vice versa. However, the children have to depart from
their home as early as 5:30 a.m. in the morning. With no electricity and running
water in their homes, these children have to bathe in the cold river catchment
water, and their parents have to make breakfast for them at very early hours of
the morning.
For the purpose of tailoring the syllabus to cultures and the learning styles
of the Orang Asli students, the Ministry of Education Malaysia and UNICEF
in a project developing new learning materials for the Orang Asli children in
primary schools have incorporated folk stories and storytelling techniques that
these children can easily understand (Nadchatram, 2007; Nettleton, 2008a).
The aim of introducing storytelling techniques in the classroom of Orang Asli
students is to encourage reading habits and improve their writing skills. Chupil
and Joseph (2003) in their educational work with one of the Orang Asli com-
munities used songs to educate the Orang Asli children and adults by incorporat-
ing the issues of land problems, gender and children’s education into the lyrics.
Other than that, Ghazali et al. (n.d.) examined the use of drama technique in
teaching Bahasa Malaysia in selected primary schools of Orang Asli and found
this technique to be effective for teaching and learning the language.
In order to elaborate further on the issue of the education of the Orang Asli,
we must understand the challenges and difficulties faced by them. Therefore,
it is very important to understand their background and history, which we
elaborate in the following section.
The Orang Asli community of Pos Sinderut
In this chapter, we discuss some of the educational and cultural challenges faced
by an Orang Asli community, Pos Sinderut, in the state of Pahang in Peninsular
Malaysia. This case study provides valuable insights on the ways in which the
Orang Asli community continue to negotiate poverty and discrimination in
present-day Malaysia. This case study also highlights the contradictions between
government policies (including the Malaysian Education Blueprint) and lived
experiences of Orang Asli.
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 61
‘Pos’ refers to the settlement or group of villages of Orang Asli in Peninsular
Malaysia. Pos Sinderut is located in the district of Kuala Lipis, in the state of
Pahang. It is about 65 kilometres (an approximate 3-hour, 20-minute drive)
from the town of Kuala Lipis, Pahang. To be more specific, the journey from
Kuala Lipis town to the entrance of Pos Sinderut through a tar-sealed road is
about 1 hour and 20 minutes by car. Then it takes another 2 hours to travel
on the 35-kilometre-long unpaved road to reach the school which is located in
Kampung Sinderut.
The establishment of ‘Pos’, or the Orang Asli settlement back in the 1940s
was indeed a form of the resettlement scheme initiated by the colonial govern-
ment to curb the infiltration of communist forces among the nomadic Orang
Asli back then. Pos was established in order to better control the movement
of the Orang Asli as well as to prevent the communists from getting the support
of Orang Asli.
It is believed that the Semai (one of the ethnic groups of Indigenous people
in Peninsular Malaysia) of Pos Sinderut originated from a hill known as ‘Lon
Kulou’, which is located nearby Kuala Sinderut and Hulu Sinderut. Their
roaming land extended up till the border of the state of Perak and the Semai
of Pos Sinderut also considered the Semai of Perak as part of their kin. The
Semai of Sinderut began to establish settlements in the current Pos Sinderut
during the emergency period to curb communist forces. It started off with the
establishment of a temporary camp at the farthest village now known as Kampung
Labu, which was soon after followed by a permanent settlement in Kampung
Kuala Sinderut. Pos Sinderut was named after a nearby river, known as Sungai
Sinderut, which flows throughout the Pos.
Pos Sinderut consists of 19 villages, comprising Kampung Belau, Kabang,
Chempian, Bertang, Tual A, Tual B, Regang, Janggap, Rangan, Kenik, Lubok
Muman, Sinderut, Bukit Long, Tigol, Saweh, Tidol, Rokam, Cherong and Labu.
The names of the villages are arranged according to the nearest distance from
the entrance to the end of the Pos. In general, every village in Pos Sinderut is
headed by a Tok Batin (community leader cum village elder). Some of the small
villages which split from the parent village, share the same Tok Batin. There are
approximately 553 households in the 19 villages in Pos Sinderut with a total
population of about 2,846 residents.
It is common that each Pos has a centre of administration established by
JAKOA in one of the villages. In the case of Pos Sinderut, the centre of
administration is located at Kampung Kuala Sinderut. This is where most of the
development projects such as the primary school, health clinic and office of
JAKOA are located.
In terms of education, the Ministry of Education Malaysia and the Department
of Orang Asli Development (in Malay: Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli, JAKOA)
have provided a preschool and a primary school in Pos Sinderut. The Depart-
ment of Orang Asli Development is the Malaysian government agency that
oversees the affairs of the Orang Asli. This body is under the Malaysian Ministry
of Rural Development and was first set up in 1954. According to the 2010
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62 Bemen Wong and Kiky Kirina Abdillah
JAKOA Annual Report, the education department of JAKOA allocated
RM263,000 to the Pahang state in 2010 for education development. The
primary school provides education to children from ages 5 to 12, as well as
their parents as the school offers classes for any adults who are interested to
acquire basic reading, writing and calculating skills.
The primary school in Pos Sinderut had 32 teachers and 518 registered
students in 2015. This included a total of 150 students who lived in the school
hostel. Because of the limited capacity of the hostel, it only could accept students
who lived far from the school. Meanwhile, those who dwelt nearby could walk
or use the transportation provided by the JAKOA to commute from their home
to school and vice versa. As stated in the 2010 JAKOA Annual Report, RM2.7
million was allocated to provide transportation to the Orang Asli children in
Pahang to commute between home and school in 2010.
The research reported in this chapter came about when UNIMAS Institute
of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations–Centre of Excellence in
Rural Informatics (ISITI-COERI) was given the opportunity by the Economic
Planning Unit of Malaysia to set up telecentres for Orang Asli West Malaysia
development specifically in Pos Balar and Pos Gob in Kelantan and Pos Lenjang
and Pos Sinderut in Pahang (Centre of Excellence for Rural Informatics [CoERI]
and Faculty of Social Sciences, UNIMAS, 2012).
The setting up of telecentre facilities aims to provide access to better com-
munication facilities among rural community, to close the digital information
divide between the haves and the have-nots and to connect the rural indigenous
community with the outside world. This initiative is in line with Malaysia’s
national IT policy and strategy, which has high expectations of the impacts of
IT on every Malaysian citizen’s life and livelihood. The principal idea of the
project focuses not only on achieving universal access to ICT facilities but also
on creating a chain effect in facilitating the socio-economic development of
the Orang Asli through the usage of ICT. For instance, it provides the Orang
Asli with access to useful information and knowledge relating to health care,
education and agriculture, and perhaps it will become a catalyst for other
local development processes such as furnishing the local community with
entrepreneurship–trade opportunities.
We conducted a case study at the Orang Asli settlement in Pos Sinderut,
Kuala Lipis, Pahang. The data were collected primarily using a qualitative
approach, and individual in-depth interviews and focus group meetings were
conducted with the school teachers, villagers, parents and students. The
majority of the teachers in Sekolah Kebangsaan Sinderut were non-Orang Asli
including the school headmaster. Most of them were Malays but a few teachers
were Orang Asli though they were from a different sub-ethnic group such as
the Jah Hut. All teachers placed in the school were trained in public teacher
training institutes. However, most of them were fresh graduates of the training
institutes.
In brief, eight focus group meetings were conducted in eight Orang Asli
villages, namely Kampung Bertang, Kampung Tual A, Kampung Tual B,
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 63
Kampung Kuala Sinderut, Kampung Hulu Sinderut, Kampung Regang, Kam-
pung Saweh and Kampung Labu. In-depth interviews were conducted with the
headmaster and five schoolteachers in the school area and with ten Orang Asli
parents during visits to their houses. The focus group meeting and interviews
were discussed issues of the Orang Asli, in general, and issues of the education
of the children, in particular. For example, the issues of school enrolment,
attendance, learning progress, perceptions of the parents about their children’s
education, and the relationship between teachers and students. The meetings
and interviews were conducted in Bahasa Malaysia, the national language with
the assistance of a translator (a local who could speak well in both languages).
Most of the Orang Asli can converse in Bahasa Malaysia, and the translator
intervened only when they needed help in explaining the issues using their own
terminologies.
Poverty and education
Generally, the Orang Asli are very poor. In the Tenth Malaysian Plan (2011–
2015), the poverty line in Peninsular Malaysia was RM763 per household
(Malaysia, 2010). We found in our interviews with our research participants
that the household monthly income of the interviewees was less than RM300
per month. Almost none of them had a permanent job. Most of my research
participants fell in the category of extreme poverty as their average monthly
income was less than RM460 per month (Idris, 2015). In order to sustain their
life, they engaged in farming, fishing, hunting and collecting forest products
such as rattan, bamboo and traditional herbs. My research participants, the
Orang Asli parents, told me during the interviews that sometimes they had to
sacrifice their children’s schooling due to their poor financial situation and living
environment. As mentioned by one of the fathers in the interview,
Sometimes I asked my son not to go to school . . . he needs to go to the
jungle to collect jungle produces for the purpose of family-consumption
and selling.
In 2012, the Centre of Excellence for Rural Informatics (CoERI) and Faculty
of Social Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak conducted a survey in four Pos
(two in Kelantan and two in Pahang) with 1,120 Orang Asli respondents. About
72 per cent of the Orang Asli men from Pahang and Kelantan (two Pos in each
state) earned around RM60 monthly. The Malaysian government has provided
some allowances to Orang Asli students through the JAKOA in its attempts to
address the poverty amongst this group of students (see Table 4.2). However,
this government assistance is quite minimal.
Their poor living conditions means that sustaining their basic daily lives takes
precedence over their children’s education. In our field observations, we observed
that the houses in Pos Sinderut are made of bamboo. Some of the villagers stay
in full brick houses funded by the government through PPRT (Projek Perumahan
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64 Bemen Wong and Kiky Kirina Abdillah
Rakyat Termiskin), a housing project for the poor. There are also villagers who
stay in half brick and half bamboo houses funded by Christian non-governmental
organizations (NGOs). A majority of the houses do not have an electricity
supply, and only a small number of houses have access to electricity during the
night with the use of personal generators. For those families which have no
generator, it is very challenging for Orang Asli children to do their schoolwork
including writing and reading. Moreover, there is no treated water in the Pos,
and the villagers’ main sources of the water for drinking, cooking and showering
come from the mountain (gravity water), rainfall and the river. As reported by
Nettleton (2007), indigenous parents are not very interested in education.
However, their consciousness of the need for education grows when outsiders
(visitors and researchers) show interest in their children’s education.
One of the parents told us during the interview,
We (as parents) are aware of the importance of education for our children
but we cannot help our children as we didn’t go to school ourselves.
Some of the Orang Asli parents felt that their children were not making much
progress in school as indicated in the following interview quote by one of the
Orang Asli parents:
Some of our children don’t know how to write their own name even
[though] they are in Year 2 or 3 of primary school.
Other than the issues of income and poor living environment, another factor
that affected the school enrolment and learning process was transportation to
school as most of the Orang Asli could not afford a car. Some of the Orang
Asli owned motorcycles but these had limited capacity for riders.
Primary school enrolment and transportation
The availability of transport and the distance between school and home plays
a significant role in the primary school enrolment of Orang Asli children. When
Table 4.2 Allowances provided by the Malaysian government to the Orang Asli
students
Allowances Amount
Transportation RM13.10–RM30.00 per day
(according to distance)
Pocket money (secondary school) RM2.00 per student
Breakfast for rural schools RM2.00 per student
Basic needs in hostel (toothbrush, shampoo, etc.) RM200 per student
Source: Portal Rasmi Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (2015).
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 65
we visited Kampung Bertang (a remote village) during our fieldwork, we
observed that many Orang Asli children aged between 7 and 12 were at home
when they were supposed to be at school. When we asked their parents and
elders about this situation, they told me that they faced major issues of trans-
portation when it came to their children’s school enrolment. According to them,
transportation and the distance from their homes to the school constituted a
major problem. The parents told us that they did not have transport to even
enrol their children in the primary school. Even for those Orang Asli parents
who were able to enrol their children, the challenge of sending their children
to school and picking them up after school was still a major obstacle.
However, the transport provider told a different story. According to Mr J, the
transport provider, he used to send his four-wheel-drive vehicle to Kampung
Bertang to pick up the children, but there was no one there. Thus, after a few
times, he stopped doing so. He blamed the parents for not being concerned about
their children’s formal education. He told us that transport was not the issue.
According to Mr J,
I used to send my four-wheel here but no one wants to go to school. The
parents didn’t place their children’s education as their main priority.
Some parents who enrolled their children from other villages did tell us that
commuting to school daily was a major problem especially to those who lived
far away from the school. This was more pressing when the parents did not
own any mode of transport. The village headman told us during the
interview,
The school is too far away . . . we do not have transport to send our
children to school.
The expected duration to commute from school to the farthest village was about
two hours by four-wheel drive along the earth road, and it was not accessible
in all weather. Several four-wheel-drive vehicles were provided by two transport
providers, and the JAKOA (the Orang Asli Welfare Department) payed for the
service. Most of the four-wheel drives were five-seaters and due to the limited
seating capacity of the vehicle, the majority of the students had to stand at the
back of the vehicle.
Other than the issue of transportation, a further challenge which the Orang
Asli in our study – and more generally – had to face is language. Having little
exposure to the national language before entering Year 1 of primary school
undermined the learning progress of the students.
Language
Language plays a very significant role in the process of teaching and learning of
the Orang Asli children. The mother tongue of the tribe in Pos Sinderut is Bahasa
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66 Bemen Wong and Kiky Kirina Abdillah
Semai, and the children have very little exposure to the national language, Bahasa
Malaysia, before attending school. However, the majority of the Orang Asli
children do not have the privilege of attending preschool or kindergarten before
entering Primary 1. This means that they are not only unprepared for formal
education but that they are also not prepared to speak Bahasa Malaysia.
One of the teachers told us that one of the main factors which impeded the
students’ learning process was language:
It is very difficult to teach the Primary One Orang Asli children . . . they
do not understand Bahasa Malaysia.
The teachers told us that teaching the Year 1 students is very difficult when
they are not able to converse and understand Bahasa Malaysia. Research has
shown that young children who have had the opportunity to attend kindergarten
show faster learning process and perform relatively better in primary school
than those who have not. In the case of the Orang Asli children in our study,
there were major communication problems between teachers and students, given
the marked difference in their language proficiency in their own language,
Bahasa Semai and Bahasa Malaysia, the medium of instruction in Malaysian
schools. Some of the students in my case study told me,
Teacher always punish me, I do not know why.
As explained by the teacher,
They do not understand what I say and cannot follow instructions. . . .
When I tell them not to make noise in class . . . they continue to make
noise. I also tell them that they cannot leave the classroom without my
permission . . . but they leave the classroom as they wish to.
During our interviews with the Orang Asli parents, we did ask them if they
preferred if the teachers in the school could converse and teach in Bahasa Semai.
Most of the parents told us that this would disadvantage their children, given
that the Malay language is the national language and medium of instruction in
Malaysian schools. One of the parents said,
I do not want my children to be taught in Semai in school. I want them
to learn Bahasa Malaysia. If they can, I want them to master English as
well.
However, one father had a different perception of the children’s complaints.
According to him,
Sometimes we cannot believe the reasons given by the children about their
slow learning progress. Sometimes the children did not put in an effort in
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 67
learning. When they did not progress, they blamed the teachers for not
teaching them correctly.
After getting to know the Orang Asli in Pos Sinderut, the authors realised that
the way the Orang Asli children learn is completely different from the ways of
urban children. The Orang Asli children learn from their parents and elders
through folklore, arts, rituals, and taboos, whereas urban children learn through
their educated parents, books, educational programmes and teachers from
preschool.
Conclusion
After many decades, the Ministry of Education and the government of Malaysia
is still working hard to address and improve the education issues among the
Orang Asli children. The ministry as well as the government have acknowledged
that a one size fits all curriculum may not be suitable for children of indigenous
communities due to the numerous disadvantages that they faced – lack of
conducive learning environments due to poverty, lack of proficiency in Bahasa
Malaysia, lack of educational support (illiterate parents, lack of awareness among
parents on the importance of education, especially early education), as well as
geographical limitations (problems in commuting to school because of its location
far away from their village).
Therefore, upon recognizing the importance of developing a different
educational framework, the Ministry of Education has come up with a few
initiatives that can fulfil the needs of the Orang Asli children. The educational
programme listed in the Malaysian Educational Blueprint (Ministry of Educa-
tion, 2013) was formulated based on the pilot project of the same course with
a few groups of Orang Asli children. Among others, one initiative is the
development of a contextualized curriculum known as Kurikulum Asli dan
Penan (KAP) tailored to Orang Asli and Penan students. KAP was formulated
based on a pilot project conducted in 2007 involving 14 Orang Asli and 6
Penan schools. It contains two important elements, a minimum adequate
syllabus and a curriculum that has been contextualized to the context of Orang
Asli and Penan communities.
Apart from the focus on curriculum, in order to address the issue of distance
and transportation problems which have significantly contributed to cases of
school dropouts among Orang Asli children, the Ministry of Education is
pushing forward with the development of a Comprehensive Special Model
School (K9) which provides residential facilities to indigenous children from
Year 1 to Form 3. This program, too, was piloted in 2007 and thus far, it
appears that the attendance rate of students has been increasing every year, from
85.7 per cent in 2007 to 97.6 per cent in 2010.
Another major issue surrounding the Orang Asli’s lack of educational attain-
ment is contributed by the language factor. Having said that, the new Malaysian
Educational Blueprint 2013 has taken a proactive action by including indigenous
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68 Bemen Wong and Kiky Kirina Abdillah
and other minorities’ languages in the curriculum in the hope that this can help
facilitate the educational process among the indigenous students. Under the
new Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah (KSSR: Standard Based Curriculum
for Primary Schools) introduced in 2011, the ministry also expanded the elective
language choices to include Iban, Kadazan, Dusun and Semai.
The ministry also recognized the importance of parenting support in facilitat-
ing children’s educational progress. Therefore, the ministry has taken up the
initiative to support the Orang Asli parents through the provision of Kelas
Dewasa Orang Asli dan Pribumi (KEDAP) in order to provide them with
sufficient literacy and numeracy skills to support their children’s learning.
In anticipation of further successes with the pilot project, the Ministry of
Education has also enlisted these initiatives in the forthcoming Malaysian
Education Blueprint. For instance, to cope with the issue of minimizing school
drop-outs among indigenous students, the Ministry is planning to expand the
number of K9 schools from two to six, followed by infrastructural upgrades for
existing schools and residential facilities as well as the prospect of the construc-
tion of new residential schools in other districts. Other initiatives also include
the process of updating KAP to ensure alignment with the design framework
and principles of KSSR and the broadening of Basic Vocational Education or
the Pendidikan Asas Vokasional (PAV) curriculum at secondary schools to provide
more options for the indigenous students.
Another important initiative for the improvement of Orang Asli students’
education involves human capital, by which the government through the Ministry
of Education aims to improve, support and provide more training to existing
teachers to better equip them with the right skills for teaching indigenous
children. Apart from that, the ministry also plans to increase the number of
Orang Asli candidates in teaching programs as well as strengthening resources
for indigenous education research at the five National Centers of Excellence for
Indigenous Pedagogy. In order to support teachers in terms of classroom learning
activities, the ministry is planning to expand the number of teacher assistants
recruited from the Orang Asli communities. This step is seen as important not
only because it acts as a mechanism for facilitating the children’s learning in
terms of transitioning from local language to Bahasa Malaysia, but it also serves
as an investment in human capital among the Orang Asli communities themselves.
And last but not least, the parent engagement toolkit that is being rolled out
to all schools in Malaysia will also contain specific information for teachers and
principals on working with indigenous and minority communities.
Overall, Orang Asli parents understand the importance of formal education
to their children. However, there is a very minimal contribution they can
provide to their children in terms of formal education as they themselves have
low levels of literacy. Thus, through the provision of the KEDAP initiative, it
is hoped that Orang Asli parents will have the opportunity to be more involved
and contribute indirectly to the learning process of their children as well as
other children in the community. Apart from that, the government should also
think of ways to better improve the socioeconomic conditions of the Orang
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Poverty and education of Orang Asli children 69
Asli community. This is because the findings of our study show that the
incidence of poverty markedly undermines the learning progress of the children
as they have to skip school to assist their parents in farming and hunting. In
addressing the issue of accessibility to education, besides establishing more K9
schools, the school also needs to find ways to distribute school enrolment forms
to the villages which are located far from the school as some parents said that
they did not collect the form from the school because of the constraints of
transportation and distance. And, finally, it is worth noting that language is
indeed an important element in the process of teaching and learning. Under-
standing the complexities derived from the language barrier has enabled the
Ministry of Education to formulate initiatives such as offering Semai language
as an elective language choice in schools as well as recruiting more teacher
assistants among the Orang Asli communities to facilitate the learning processes
and progress of the Orang Asli children. This is because the ministry has
acknowledged that without effective communication in the classroom, the
learning process will be undermined and conflicts will escalate. Therefore, all
parties, namely the JAKOA, teachers and parents, have to work hand in hand
to address the issues and solve the problems of education in the villages of the
Orang Asli.
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