2007 04: Editorial: From streets to schools

NST online. cloumns. 20/04/07

SOCIETY tends to see street children as social sores who tarnish the tourist landscape and make a general nuisance of themselves with their aimless loitering, hassling for handouts and sleeping in the streets.

Many respectable citizens would like nothing better than to see the authorities harry homeless kids, take them off the streets and put them in the special homes for the wayward. In the case of the waifs and strays who have taken up residence in the alleys and on the sidewalks of Jalan Wong Ah Fook in Johor Baru, the Welfare Department has apparently not been able to accommodate the wishes of the more honourable members of society. Since these street urchins have neither been deserted by their kin nor have been caught begging, the arm of the law has apparently not been long enough to touch them.

But to his credit, the lack of legal restraints does not seem to have deterred Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein from addressing the problem of unsupervised children living alone on urban streets. What is more commendable is that his solution lies in getting them off the streets through the education route. This is a refreshing change from the all-too-common law-and-order response as represented in the periodic round ups and arrest of street children for misdemeanours such as vagrancy, peddling contraband goods and washing windscreens. We should neither treat street children as troublemakers who need to be punished nor view them as a social stain that needs to be removed. Many seek refuge on the streets for reasons not of their own making, and most are illiterates with no basic skills to help them get proper jobs. A decent education may help break the "vicious circle with no future" that the minister referred to. If we choose to abandon them to their fate, allow them to grow up without any skills, and let them remain social outcasts, they will turn into heavier social millstones in the future.

Though getting the street-savvy kids of Johor Baru back to school may not be a simple matter of identifying them, we have a pretty good idea of who they are, and we know they have not only run away to escape the unbearable living conditions in their homes but also to get away from the derision and disdain of their schoolmates and teachers. The challenge is in finding them the schools with the supportive teachers and understanding students that could persuade them to leave the streets.