In Sabah, stateless children are learning; even if the state pretends they don't exist — Delpedro Marhaen

Malay Mail

2 days ago

AUGUST 16 — In Teluk Layang, Kota Kinabalu, there is a school with no flag, no ministry signboard, and no official status. You won't find it on any government list of educational institutions.
It stands quietly behind Universiti Malaysia Sabah — a modest wooden structure with half-open walls, open to the wind and the salt of the sea. On some afternoons, you can hear the sound of children reciting poetry, their voices competing with the roar of the waves.
These are not just any children. In the eyes of the Malaysian state, they are invisible. They are stateless.
Their parents came from the southern Philippines or Indonesia decades ago, fleeing conflict, poverty, or persecution. Many have lived here for four generations. But without citizenship papers, their children inherit the same legal limbo — no MyKad, no birth certificate, no rights to basic services. No school will take them.
The Teluk Layang Alternative School exists for these children. And it is not alone — similar schools operate in Tawau and Sampoerna. Together, they serve more than 150 stateless children, offering the one thing the state has denied them: an education.
But this is not a government project. The teachers here are not civil servants. They are students, activists, and workers who believe education is a right, not a privilege to be rationed out by bureaucrats. A courier. A t-shirt printer. A junior high school graduate. For almost a decade, they have shown up every day, unpaid, to teach in classrooms without desks or chairs.
The curriculum is broader than you might expect. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are just the beginning. The children also learn farming, sewing, cooking, health and safety, and self-reliance. They discuss how to protect themselves from workplace exploitation, child marriage, and abuse — because for the stateless, these are not abstract dangers but daily realities.
The philosophy here draws from Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed: education as a tool for liberation, a way to build critical thinking and resistance against injustice. In this school, the act of learning is also the act of claiming a place in the world.
Some of the best proof of its impact comes from its own alumni. Niko and Damal, once students here, returned years later as teachers. Others have gone on to start community projects or win grants to serve their neighbourhoods. Many have broken free from destructive habits like glue-sniffing — a common escape in communities with no safe spaces for youth.
Sabah's stateless crisis is neither small nor new. Suhakam estimates between half a million and one million stateless children live here. Unicef reports tens of thousands are entirely excluded from formal schooling. History explains some of it — the nomadic Bajau Laut existed long before Malaysia's borders, the Moro conflict sent waves of refugees across the sea, and political manoeuvres like the 'IC Project' deepened the documentation gap.
But history is not an excuse for inaction.
The teachers here are not civil servants. They are students, activists, and workers who believe education is a right, not a privilege to be rationed out by bureaucrats. — Freepik pic
Instead of offering solutions, policy often paints these communities as a 'security threat'. The irony is stark: it is the denial of education, not the granting of it, that truly threatens security. A generation left uneducated is a generation locked out of opportunity — more vulnerable to exploitation, crime, and despair.
The alternative schools show another way. They prove that citizenship is not just a legal status printed on a card. It is a lived practice — something you can enact daily through participation, solidarity, and shared responsibility. But they also remind us how fragile such grassroots efforts can be. Without legal recognition or stable funding, these schools survive on donations and sheer determination, all while facing the constant threat of eviction in the name of 'development' or tourism.
If you visit Teluk Layang, you might be tempted to see it as a story of charity. But this is not charity. It is justice in action. It is a community filling the gap left by a state that has turned away.
And here is the uncomfortable truth: education should never depend on whether a child has the right papers. The right to learn should be unconditional. The state's duty is not optional.
Sabah's stateless children are not 'problems' to be solved or 'threats' to be contained. They are young people with talents, dreams, and a right to exist. Every day, in classrooms without flags, they are proving they are worth investing in.
The question is not whether they can succeed — they already are. The question is whether Malaysia will finally choose to see them.
* Delpedro Marhaen is the executive driector of Lokataru Foundation.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.