The education minister said the key issue preventing children from receiving education is poverty, while a lack of education can lead to many children falling victim to social ills.

“If we take a look at the percentage of people that did not take SPM, we will notice they are working, but some are still very poor.

“Poverty is still the key narrative when it comes to access to education. Some (school dropouts) are pregnant and some are even in prison,” she said.

To address the matter, Fadhlina said the government is doing all it can to improve access, noting that the ministry is already at the final stages of creating the policy to make secondary education mandatory.

“The only challenge we face now is the fact that children can work in Malaysia from as young as 15 years old,” she said at the Malaysian Student Leaders summit (MSLS) at the Intercontinental Hotel here.

During the event, Fadhlina also said that poverty had affected many families since the pandemic, and so many of them are facing “multidimensional poverty”, which includes lacking the technology and the space to learn.