'5,000 Malay-Indian kids have not attended school'

Kuala Lumpur, Sep. 4 (ANI): Malaysian Human Rights Commissioner N. Siva Subramaniam has said that almost 5,000 children from the Malay Indian community have not attended school.

Subramaniam counted poverty and lack of birth certificates as the prime reasons for this problem, saying birth certificates were is necessary for children's admission into schools.

The Star Online quoted Siva as saying that only 39 percent of Malay Indian children attended kindergarten.

"The commission has found that children who attended kindergarten classes can cope with their studies in primary school while those who did not are lagging behind," he said. (ANI)