Mukmin (in red T-shirt) conducting a class on advanced writing techniques for youth leaders in a village in Semporna.
WHEN Mukmin Nantang and his university friends started Borneo Komrad, they only wanted to help stateless children gain a basic education. They never thought that eight years later, they would be running a university.
In fact, the idea for Universiti Alternatif itself came from graduates of the Sekolah Alternatif system for stateless youth in Sabah set up by Borneo Komrad in 2015, Mukmin told The Star.
“These are children from marginalised communities, who at first did not even have an education. But when they gained that education, they realised how important it was to deepen their knowledge. And so they wanted to establish a university,” said Mukmin, a co-founder of Borneo Komrad.“That is how high their hopes are to transform their communities. I myself did not think of setting up a university even though I went to university. This is a huge impact of the Sekolah Alternatif system,” said the creative arts graduate of Universiti Malaya Sabah.
Although it is not formally recognised as a tertiary education institution by the government or any official higher education accreditation system, Universiti Alternatif is perhaps the only channel for stateless youth in Sabah to gain higher skills and broaden their worldviews.
Mukmin and his fellow Borneo Komrad members run the Universiti Alternatif and three Sekolah Alternatif. — All photos courtesy of Borneo Komrad
“When some of our Sekolah Alternatif graduates turned 18 and 19, they asked us if they could attend university. As educators, we did not have the heart to tell them that they could not as they did not have the proper documents – this was something they themselves knew,” said Mukmin.
The teachers and students both realised that what held the graduates back from higher education was not a lack of passion and capability to want to further pursue knowledge, but the legal obstacles society had put in their way.
“So we asked them, ‘what is a university to you?’ Through our discussions, we concluded that it was to pursue more advanced knowledge, to broaden their understanding of the world and to use that knowledge to serve their communities. So, we all decided to set up our own university,” Mukmin recalled.
Set up in July this year, Universiti Alternatif is currently housed in a wooden and brick building the size of a one-storey house in Semporna and is equipped with stationery, white boards, a mini-library, projectors and laptops for its students.
It is probably the only higher learning institution in Malaysia that is built in a village, said Mukmin, and has 20 full-time and 25 part-time students who come from the surrounding islands and Tawau.
Funded entirely by public donations, it currently has a teaching staff of 10, some of whom are volunteers.
Universiti Alternatif’s subjects include the dynamics of seafaring and coastal cultures, theories and practices of managing organisations, film studies, art and design, product management, human libraries and sociology.
Besides the Universiti Alternatif, Borneo Komrad still runs the three Sekolah Alternatif that they have established since 2015 for stateless children in Tawau, Kota Kinabalu and Semporna.
Also operating totally from public donations, the three schools currently have 150 students in two different skills levels – basic literacy and advanced literacy.
Basic literacy is where children learn reading, writing, arithmetics, Bahasa Malaysia, basic science and basic arts. Advanced classes are where students learn to compose essays, short stories and where they can learn the foundations of agriculture, tailoring, cooking and making handicrafts.
But Sekolah Alternatif is more than just a place to learn to read and write.
“We also teach them hygiene, health, communication skills and teamwork. Because they are from a marginalised community, they grow up fearful of people from outside the community because they don’t have proper documents. They are often unable to communicate like other children,” said Mukmin.
Due to the extreme poverty of their communities, most of the pupils come from homes with little running water and live in unhygienic conditions.
“Once they attend school, we can really see how they have changed. They dress in clean clothes, they trim their nails, they are confident in speaking to outsiders. Some of them have even made films that are shown at festivals,” said Mukmin.
Sekolah Alternatif’s branches have collectively benefitted 500 children since 2015 and many graduates have returned to become teachers and administrators of these schools so that they can benefit another generation.
Some students have even managed to get grants for projects in their own communities, such as for a programme to combat substance abuse among children addicted to glue, an initiative to create farm compost from food waste and an environmental awareness programme using theatre.
“For children who started out not being able to write or read or communicate, growing up to being able to develop concept papers and slides, and apply for grants to run their own projects is something really big,” said Mukmin.
By creating a space for children to learn and play, Sekolah Alternatif has also helped bring down the number of youths who abuse glue in these communities.
“Because they have no place to play, they sniff glue as a form of entertainment but to also overcome hunger. When they attend school, we noticed that they don’t have that habit anymore,” said Mukmin.
Even though Sekolah Alternatif and Universiti Alternatif are not formally recognised by the government, acknowledgement of their impact and the role they play for their communities has come from educators in public and private tertiary education institutions.
Several local universities have sent their students for industrial training at Sekolah and Universiti Alternatif.
Sekolah Alternatif has even received visits from students from the National Universiti of Singapore (NUS), who come to run short programmes for pupils.
Mukmin said they also hosted students for industrial training from a top local teacher training and education research institution.
Going forward, Borneo Komrad wants to focus on improving the quality of the four institutions it has now and upgrading their assets rather than opening more branches across Sabah despite requests to do so. There are also plans to build a hostel for students of the university.
Mukmin said Borneo Komrad was also running projects to document the cultures of coastal and seafaring communities such as the Bajau Laut, besides aiding stateless children to gain identity documents.
However, education remains the top priority, he stressed.
“We’ve gotten so many requests to open up more Sekolah Alternatif, but our funding is limited. So, we really urge other organisations to come in and establish more of these schools.
“We can give free advice and training on how to do it because we believe there should be more organisations and groups doing this work,” he said.
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