Extracted from The Borneo Post Friday, 16 January 2004

Community-based school for Penan tribe

By Lucas Jalong Bato

MIRI: Borneo Resources Institute Malaysia (BRIMAS) believes that a community -based school concept should be good alternative to the present school system for the semi-nomadic Penan tribe.

BRIMAS research into why the Penan had failed to fit into the present school system reveals that a community-based school concept would be the best alternative and appropriate to the needs of the Penan community where their children could acquire proper and formal education with full participation from their parents. According to BRIMAS, the community-based school concept was a simple approach to inculcate their interest in education, parental participation and general awakening of the community to be responsible and to take charge of their own school development and progress.

Through the community-based school, the Penan children of 7 years old could acquire formal primary education into their settlement/village and upon attaining the age of 12 or 13 they should be ready for secondary school education. Recent news report said the Director of Education, Dr. Adi Badiozaman Tuah stated that the Department was still looking for other alternatives to get Penan children into the mainstream of Education. BRIMAS felt that the Education Department was still not too late to realise that it had failed to get Penan Children to school despite efforts and initiatives given over the years.

It said there were several factors that could have contributed to these failures, including the school being situated far away from their settlement, Penan children having poor adaptability to boarding and formal school environment, and school system and curriculum being socially and culturally inappropriate. BRIMAS said Penan children had a great sense of inferiority complex and feeling of not being accepted by other native children or communities. This, it said, could probably be due to the fact that traditional lifestyle among the Penan rarely saw parents and children go separate ways.

Besides, BRIMAS felt that Penan children were used to being brought to forage in the forest, hence trained to know their environment and be part and parcel of their parents’ activities. The present school system, BRIMAS said, separated parents from children. BRIMAS felt that while looking for alternatives, the State Education Department must seriously consider and address all the underlying factors, or else, whatever model the government may come up with would eventually fail. Since 1998, BRIMAS conducted two pilot community-based pre-school projects in Penan villages namely Long Latei and Ba Abang in Baram district. The projects aimed to educate the Penan children between the age of 4 and 6 years on literacy skills, health education and how to nurture their own culture.

The pre-school centre received tremendous encouragement and support from the parents and support from the parents and members of the village. Every year, since their inception, about 60 children would be attending lessons in the pre-school centres. Many who had completed their pre-school lessons had continued their education in the nearest government primary school and are doing well like nay other children. BRIMAS extended invitation to officials of the State Education Department to visit the two centres. BRIMAS also supported the State Education Department’s plan to send teachers to Penan settlement for the sake of the Penan children living in the interior region of Sarawak.