This attitude has Abdul Razak Ahmad, the founding director of think tank Bait Al-Amanah, puzzled.

He said Malaysians did not seem to want to solve the problem of the stateless, and shared Turkey’s solution to educating refugees and stateless children.

He said national schools there stayed open for them during the weekends, allowing the community to manage education for their young.

“The refugees recruit their own teachers to teach the children,” he said.

In Iran, which has millions of refugees, the government allows children to attend national school, he said.

“They are more progressive in dealing with refugees and stateless children,” he said during a webinar titled Upholding The Right To Education For Stateless Children.

Razak said that, in Malaysia, the government officials were still working in silos.

“There is also resistance to change. It may be difficult to see changes among bureaucrats,” he said.

He narrated his experience working in a university in Sabah. He said he pushed for several brilliant and talented stateless children to continue their studies or to be hired as contract lecturers upon finishing their studies, but failed in his attempts.

While working for the higher education ministry, he said he also tried to obtain scholarships for stateless children but this was met with resistance.

Razak said the government was giving out scholarships to foreign students but there was resistance when he asked the ministry to consider doing the same for those without proper documents in Malaysia to pursue studies at local universities.

He said the “strong resistance” came not from the ministry but from bureaucrats.

He said the political masters were not naive about problems faced by stateless children in Malaysia. “But I don’t see anyone in the government addressing the issue,” he said.

Earlier, during the webinar, Hartini Zainuddin, co-founder of Yayasan Chow Kit, warned that many health issues were reported among stateless children, but they did not seek medical help to avoid paying hefty bills.

Health was also deteriorating among pregnant mothers with many stillborn cases being reported.

Stateless children in Malaysia are not allowed to open bank accounts, have a passport or to work. They do not have access to education, she said, adding these basic rights should no longer be ignored.

“We are looking at an equal playing field and nothing more or less,” she said, adding that the government does not have statistics on the number of stateless children in the country.

Suhakam’s children’s commissioner Noor Aziah Mohd Awal shared a November 2020 reply in Parliament that stated the home ministry had received 14,477 applications for citizenship. Out of that, 45 applications were successful while 691 papers were rejected.

The rest were still being processed.

Three NGOs in Sabah – Etania Schools Sabah, Iskul Sama DiLaut Omadal and ANAK – also shared their experiences.

Kathryn Rivai of Etania Schools Sabah said tens of thousands of children could not get an education in Sabah. Due to that, she had helped open more schools in plantations and in rural areas.

She said some of the issues facing the stateless were inter-generational as parents were not able to prove their country of birth.

“Children must know their place in society. Why can’t the children be issued documents to avoid being marginalised and to stop feeling inferior to others?”

Rivai said their parents worked in plantations, doing jobs shunned by Malaysians.

“Education helps children to live better lives and feel proud of themselves.

“They will not get involved in social crime. We have to give them an opportunity so that they can become valuable members of society,” she added.