THERE used to be a stigmatic Malay consternation at school dropouts: "cicir". Defined as recently as last year by the Education Ministry as students who opted out of the education system before completing the full course, the ministry is grappling with the problem despite historically plunging rates.
In a recent Dewan Rakyat query, the ministry reported that dropout rates for primary and secondary schools decreased from 0.29 per cent in 2017 to 0.06 per cent last year, and from 1.36 per cent to 0.83 per cent in the same period, respectively.
Dropouts are caused by various social circumstances. Poverty is still a conundrum: students are compelled by parents to either stay home or enter the workforce to help keep the family afloat.
Tragedy has a bearing: students lose a parent or parents, thus unable to continue with their schooling. Disillusion with academia sets in: dropouts dive into the workforce, searching for purpose while enjoying quick gratification.
In this scenario, dropouts also shun the formalities of sitting Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia. Their options are varied. Jobs are abundant in the manufacturing, agriculture and service sectors, but the inclination is on the go-to employment as e-hailing delivery riders or drivers.
For ambitious teenagers, they beautify their wardrobe and spruce up their image to morph into influencers in the great social media experiment. Again, as in previous years, the dropout's stigma may be embarrassing, but times have changed. Dropouts bask in admiration if they persevere in maintaining family upkeep or better still, set up a small business.
In recent years, the newer generation's penchant for small business has been startlingly transformative, exemplified by the flourishing of online food, apparel and beauty enterprises.
If dropouts do make it big as influencers, who needs a costly formal education while drowning in student debt? This is legendary. As the story goes, one student quickly ditched the reality of her academic baggage after discovering that her hard-earned technical degree makes far less money than cleaning toilets.
Then there are the libertarians, parents who pulled out their children from or never even started schooling, not even privately, preferring home tutoring. The point is that a formal education, while always valuable and practical, might have lost its lustre in recent years, especially as a tool to secure coveted jobs.
Nevertheless, it's proven that Malaysians can make a life from a multitude of economic opportunities, no matter their academic, or non-academic, backgrounds.
Dropout or not, ivory tower or not, we only hope for one outcome for teenagers coursing their way in life's unpredictable yellow brick road: respect for the golden rule to be compassionate, honest, courteous and helpful to fellow Malaysians.
If they embody these values, we just might avoid future insanities crippling Malaysia.
