All children have a right to education

THE Malaysian Bar is perturbed by the fact that there are still stateless children who are denied access to government schools. It was recently reported that there have been several incidents of stateless children in Penang being denied enrolment into government schools due to their lack of a passport.

The Malaysian Bar is of the view that such a requirement by the Education Ministry would make it extremely difficult for stateless children to be enrolled in government schools. It is almost impossible for stateless children to provide passports as the biological parents of these children are not in Malaysia, or their parents’ country of origin did not issue passports to children who were born outside that country.