Increasing Access to and Retention in Primary Education in Malaysia 145
has ranged from 92.7 per cent (in 1990) to 98.1 per cent (in 2000), with it
being 96.3 per cent in 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available.
Thus, even ignoring those children without documents (to be discussed
below), we see that some seven-year-olds do not enter the first grade.
That drop-out also contributes to keeping the NER below 100 per cent
is evidenced in Figure 6.3, which presents primary school survival rates
and drop-out numbers for some of the relevant years, 1989 and 2000–04.
For instance, one notes that the primary school survival rate was relatively
high in 1989 (96.7 per cent), though not equal to 100 per cent, which would
be the case if there were no dropouts. Moreover, with the exception of the
years 2002 and 2003, the survival rate gradually increased between 2000
and 2004, when the figure was 98.3 per cent.
EQUITY OF ACCESS AND RETENTION, 1980–2010
Malaysia has been on track to providing equitable learning opportunities
to all Malaysian children since its Independence in 1957. The country has
a vested interest in bridging the gap in access to education of the various
subgroups, given that those without the competencies to participate fully
in the society can bring a bigger cost to the country and affect achieving
its economic goals. The following sections will examine issues of access
FIGURE 6.3
Survival Rates to Year 6 and Primary School Drop-outs, 1989–2004Source: MOE (2008).