EDUCATION ISSUES AMONG THE PALA'U COMMUNITY IN LAHAD DATU, SABAH

Education is no longer a local or national issue but a universal issue affecting the world today. It has become fundamental to the development of society as well as a key element of any government agenda globally. It also began to play it significant in the community of immigrants or the stateless. The documentation and their citizenship status which are highly debated, thus, have not only sparked another issue such as politics and international relations but also social issues such as humanitarian associated with education. The Pala’u of Lahad Datu has been among the community encountering citizenship and other issues in Malaysia. This study examines the education issues affecting the Pala’u in Lahad Datu, involving 136 participants who provided their responses through a set of survey questionnaires. The study shows that their traditional way of life of being so much atteched with the sea made the viewer's education less important. Apart from that, factors such as bullying in the school, access to school, their nomadic nature of life, and low awareness among their parents also have been the reason why they did not attend school. Moreover, the documentation or the citizenship problem also made the Pala’u ineligible to access school according to Malaysia law.

A Spatial Analysis on Charter School Access in the New York Metropolitan Area

Background Extant literature has consistently indicated that access to charter school markets is shaped by social geography. Given interest in location shown by charter schools and parents, estimating potential spatial access to charter schools has become instrumental in understanding equal opportunities for charter school enrollment in metropolitan areas with preexisting residential segregation. Purpose By considering the increasing significance of sociogeography, this article asks whether students have equal opportunities for potential spatial access to charter schools across communities and how disparities in charter school access are related to housing patterns. Setting This study focuses on 122 charter schools in the New York metropolitan region, a highly segregated metropolitan area in the United States where charter schools are a primary component of education reform. Research Design The first part of this study illustrates patterns of spatial accessibility of the area's charter schools, within a 20-minute commuting time, to students aged 5–13 years by employing the enhanced two-step floating catchment area method using a Gaussian function. The next part of the study tests the hypothesis that students are able to access charter schools equitably and irrespective of their place of residence. The spatial lag regression model is used to compare distributions of potential spatial accessibility with 15 demographic and socioeconomic variables. Findings Even after controlling for disproportionate population sizes by census tract, the potential need for charter schools is matched inequitably with the supply of educational service providers. The spatial lag regression results indicate that children in areas less accessible to charter schools within a convenient travel period tend to be exposed to communities with more populations of color, higher unemployed groups, and less expensive housing. Conclusions The findings offer empirical evidence that access to charter school differs depending on demographic and socioeconomic attributes, in significant combination with geography, illuminating charter school location strategies in real-world contexts. Though charter schools have been promoted as a vehicle to offer significant equity advantages across politically designed and strictly operated school attendance boundaries, charter schools in metropolitan New York exercise a distinct and profound form of pseudo-zoning by use of location strategies to exclude certain children who may be considered less desirable.

The Role of River Transport for School Access

River transportation in Indonesia involves upstream and downstream travel, and river crossings. To be defined as navigable, a river must meet certain technical requirements, including depth, slope and current velocity. River transport plays a particularly important role in Indonesia’s Kalimantan region, especially in areas where road transportation infrastructure is not yet available. This study uses a methodological approach and framework to consider the importance of river transport for schools access in the region. Keywords: Transportation, School, River