A/HRC/44/40/Add.3 K9 in rural area consisting of primary and lower secondary levels. K9 school provided residential education from Primary Year 1 to Secondary Form 3. The main objective is to reduce the drop-out rate between year 6 and form 1. • For refugee children, MOE collaborates with UNHCR Malaysia to ensure refugee children have access to basic education. Education for these children are conducted at Alternative Learning Centres (ALCs). UNHCR provides the list of ALCs from registered NGOs and MOE assists in the establishment and registration of ALCs in accordance to the Education Act 1996. The Board of Governors of these ALCs are obliged to ensure education services are delivered to the children and these centres provide access to basic amenities such as water, electricity and most importantly ensure the safety of these children in ALC premises. As of June 2019, there are 13 ALCs established with enrolment of 1,274 children and the registration of these ALCs are ongoing. • Starting 2019, MoE provides opportunity to undocumented children to receive education. However, there are certain rules and regulations to abide by, such as providing self-identification for the purpose of school registration. Undocumented children adopted by Malaysian citizens or those whose parent is a Malaysian citizen, is allowed to receive education based on the followings: (i) to resolve self-identification documents of these non-citizens within a period of two years starting from the date the children enter school; and (ii) to pay school fee fixed by the MoE Paragraph 42 Far too many schools suffer from a lack of basic infrastructure and facilities or deteriorating conditions. There are many dilapidated schools in rural areas, especially in Sabah and Sarawak. According to the Ministry of Education, 584 of the 1,296 schools in Sabah have been classified as dilapidated by the Public Works Department. Eighty-four of these were rated unsafe, but just 22 were scheduled for repair in 2019. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • Malaysia is among the countries in the world that provides the highest budget for education. 20% of the national budget was allocated to the education sector in 2019 which is equivalent to RM60.2 billion. • Dilapidated schools are among the issues of concern identified in the list of top priorities for MOE to address. Between 2016 and 2019, MOE has allocated RM1.5 billion for the repairing and upgrading of dilapidated schools throughout the country. In additions to the allocation by the federal government, state governments also rendered cooperation in addressing the problems of dilapidated schools. For example, the Sarawak state government provided an allocation of RM1 billion to repair dilapidated schools in Sarawak. • The government will continue the initiatives under the 12th Malaysia Plan, with the target of eliminating issues pertaining the dilapidated schools by the end of the 12th Malaysia Plan. • The quality of education in Malaysia is showing improvement since Malaysia first took part in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1999 and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2009. Malaysia aims to further improve its education performance. However, the outcomes of all the initiatives implemented by the government can only be measured and known after a certain period of implementation. Malaysia hopes to excel in the TIMSS and PISA performance by 2025. Malaysia’s performance in the most current cycle of these international studies, PISA 2018 and TIMSS 2019 will only be published in December 2019 and in November 2020. Based on various improvement initiatives in curriculum, teaching and learning, Malaysia is expected to achieve further improvement in its performance. 20