The world of Tzu Chi January 2020 (Vol.118)

2020 • 01 10 eature whom are expected to take on side jobs to support the family’s livelihood, causing them to lose motivation in their studies. Some of the students work as temporary labour after completing their lower secondary education or upon graduating from secondary school. Several among these students have become Tzu Chi’s care recipients after sustaining injuries that left them unfit to work. Tzu Chi KL & Selangor has been offering financial assistance to students from underprivileged families since 1997, amounting to 209,355 provisions of aid as of December 31, 2018. In 2019, Tzu Chi KL & Selangor has granted education-related funding to Malaysian students of various ethnicities, including 33 percent of Indian ethnicity, 32 percent of Chinese ethnicity, 22 percent of Malay ethnicity and 13 percent from the indigenous community and other ethnicities. Despite its status as a minority ethnicity in Malaysia, the local Indian community occupies the largest share among the beneficiaries of Tzu Chi KL & Selangor’s provisions of financial Following the implementation of the MOE’s Program Sifar Murid Cicir (PSMC or Zero Student Dropout Programme), dropout rates at the primary and secondary levels declined by 25.6 percent and 26.1 percent respectively.