The displaced through education
E-lluminate Malaysia is approaching the complex situation of refugee children and education differently
AS of today, there are approximately 152,000 refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia, and 26,000 out of them are children of schoolgoing age.
According to Yante Ismail, a spokesman for UNCHR, in the pool of children eligible to pursue education through schools, only 30% are enrolled within any kind of education programme.
With the flames of conflict continuously raging in parts of the world, the surplus of refugees pouring into the country has left a large number of children without a proper education system to turn towards.
Due to how Malaysia isn’t a signatory of the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention treaty, the stateless children in the country do not have access to public schools that provide the national education system.
Though community-based learning centres that are operated by NGOs and refugee communities exist, Yante explains that due to “the informal nature of these learning centres, the scope and reach of these classes are often restricted by a lack of resources”.
Approaching the issue from a different trajectory, Kim Lim and Teoh Min Chia have founded Elluminate Malaysia, a social enterprise that seeks to empower refugee children to become selfsustainable through education.
“While volunteering with Hands of Hope, we found that the schools’ problems all went down to how there is no sustainability,” explains Teoh.
“We realised that we needed to focus on the quality of education, and also bring sustainability to the schools where they themselves are part of the solution.”
One third of the successful Picha Project, Lim clarifies that Picha started off due to the same reason, as the founders saw the need for education and sustainability involving marginalised groups in Malaysia.
Teoh explains that E-lluminate’s current primary goal is to develop education and a proper syllabus. She clarifies that eventually, the kids will “gain exposure towards more things, so that they can find out what their strengths are, what they like, and what they will be able to work on in the future”.
This is a model that the founders expect will achieve selfsustainability, and something that Teoh hopes to expand to other community schools beyond the current scope.
Further speaking on the goals of E-lluminate, Lim hopes to raise enough funds to secure teachers for the community-based schools.
“We pay our teachers, and the reason why is so that they are empowered to empower the kids as well,” she says.
“We believe teachers are the best assets for schools. Facilities can come later, but teachers are important, and dedicated teachers are even more important,” adds Teoh.
The common, recurring subject matter during theSun’s interview with E-lluminate is the importance of teachers, as Lim points out that consistency in full-time teachers leads to results, and in turn provides the avenue for “entrepreneurship mindsets to join in to incubate different business models to sustain the school”.
Though E-lluminate is currently working on an education syllabus, the social enterprise has already hired and placed three teachers into refugee learning centres.
A former teacher of Sathya Sai Primary School, Delwir Kaur explains that the jump from teaching Malaysian children to refugee children that could not string sentences in either English or Bahasa Malaysia was jarring.
One of the other two teachers, and Delwir’s daughter, Danisa Komari echoed the same sentiment, but noted how the children are quickly adapting to English, especially when being taught Science and Mathematics.
“The teachers previously have already been teaching them, even though it was in their mother tongue. At first they didn’t know what is ‘minus’, but when it’s shown to them, then they begin to associate the word with the concept,” Danisa elaborates.
E-lluminate and the teachers are currently focusing on teaching English, Science and Mathematics, along with entrepreneurship skills, with plans to expand the range for the latter eventually.
Queried on the three subjects and how the children’s progress are being evaluated, Danisa states that it’s just like how public schools do both; a syllabus is taught and an exam is given.
And should these children fail to show improvement?
“We’re telling them this is how it’s going to be; you either buck up or be left behind. That’s why they have to know that even if they aren’t doing well in the exam, it’s not because they’re dumb, it’s because they didn’t put in the effort,” Danisa says.
“Right now, I feel like this school is like their one hope that’s actually teaching them all of these skills. If we’re not here, I don’t know what they’ll be doing.”
The UNHCR views education as the paramount necessity for the survivability of refugees, and while E-lluminate and its passionate teachers view education the same way, they’re concurrently taking what little education is accessible for refugee children, and are refining it into something with focus and sustainability.