Recommendation

In order to encourage the low-income group to pursue higher level of education, we would like to recommend that government should organise an education foundation which make it compulsory for all the poor family to save money for their children’s future education. This saving plan will ensure that our future generation’s education level is secured as through the saving, poverty might not be the main obstacle that prevents them from pursuing their study. Therefore, parents should start register for an account of this education foundation once their child is born. The amount of saving will be contributed by both the government and parents on a monthly basis.

We have chosen Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) College and University of Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) in determining the duration of general academic progression of Bachelor Degree level of education. The duration for Diploma study is 2 years and 4 months and the Degree study in UTAR would take 2 years and 5 months. In other words, the entire progression would take 4 years 9 months or 57 months.

Besides that, according to Legenda Education Group (2010), the basic living expenses for a student pursuing Degree level of study is RM 10, 260 for the entire period, provided that the student is staying with his family, having lunch only at school canteen, no entertainment expenses, attending 5-day classes and travel to school by bus. These living expenses mainly comprise of bus fare, meal and mobile phone fees. The education fees have been excluded as the government should make the Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional Study Loan available to all the students from poor family.

The purpose of determining the duration of study and basic living expenses of a tertiary student is to determine how much the parents should save monthly to be sufficient for their children’s future study. According to Wong (2012),the average household income for the poverty group in Malaysia is RM 800 per month. As mentioned earlier, parents should save for children education once the baby is born and the age eligible for tertiary study would be 18 years old. In other words, parents would have saved for 18 years before their children attend tertiary school. Hence, based on the computation, each parent would have to save RM 47.50 per month which is approximately RM 48 monthly.

After the computation of the amount of monthly saving, we would then determine how much portion the parents and government should contribute for this saving plan. As mentioned in the above, the average income of low-income earners is RM 800 monthly. Thus, the saving amount which is RM 48 would make up 6% of the parents’ total income.

However, in order to reduce the burden of the low-income earners, out of the 6%, government would contribute 4%, which is RM 32 per month whereas parents would only need to contribute 2% which is RM 16 monthly.

The following tables summarise the whole idea of this saving plan:

 

Limitation

Time Constraint

After summarising our research, we found that time constraint is the major limitation that our group is facing. As our target group is not focus only in a specific area, we have to conduct the survey at different low-cost living area in KL and Pahang. Besides that, due to personal safety issue, our group decided to conduct the survey in a group instead of conducting the survey at different places alone. This may indirectly delay the progress of our research.

Additionally, every group is required to conduct at least 100 survey questionnaires in order to produce relevant data to support our research subject matter. However, we found that out of the 100 respondents we met, only 84 respondents match the criteria of our target group which is monthly household income of RM 3000 and below and due to time constraint, we could not manage to get another 16 respondents who are eligible for our research topic. Therefore, the outcome of the research may mainly concentrate on the data and information obtained from this group of people.

Lack of Qualitative Research
As this is a quantitative research, sometimes the validity and reliability of the data obtained from the respondents may be questionable. For instance, in our questionnaire, we did ask the household income of each family. Through the survey, we realised that some parents are quite hesitate in answering this question as they feel embarrassed to reveal the little amount of their income. As a result, some of the respondents might deliberately state their income higher than the actual income they earned.

Moreover, lack of qualitative research means that we are unable to have in-depth knowledge regarding our research topic based on the data collected from the respondents. For example, in our questionnaire, we did ask about the respondents’ financial background like household income and whether they do receive government cash aid and subsidy. However, these questions do not reveal much information that their children will attain low level of education in the future.

Sensitive Issue in the Questionnaire
Furthermore, sensitive issue in our questionnaire has caused some respondents refused to answer our survey. As referred to our research, our target population would be those respondents earning RM 3,000 and below. Therefore, to further prove that the respondents do belong to low-income group, we have designed a question which regard to whether the respondents do receive government’s RM 500 cash aid. This question is considered sensitive to certain respondents as some of them are providing fake information in getting the cash aid.
 
As a result, some of the respondents may not reveal the actual answer in answering the survey questionnaire. Hence, the result in our research may probably include invalid information. Additionally, this sensitive issue has delayed the progress of our research as the respondent felt unhappy regarding the question and subsequently refused to continue the survey.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, our model is accepted which means poverty will lead to low education of future generation. Financial would be the main concern for those who earn little income for the family, which is RM 3000 and below. Poverty in a family starts with the level of education attained by the parents. As mentioned earlier, low education level of the parents would cause them to engage in low-skilled and low-paid job Sabel (2001). Therefore, when thinking about their children’s future education cost, they may feel discourage to spend money on it. As a result, again the next generation will face the same problem as their parents.

Additionally, we are able to achieve the stated research objectives. Firstly, as mentioned in the above, we are able to prove that there is direct relationship between poverty and low education of future generation. Secondly, we are able to come out with a solution to this problem. The resolution will be discussed in the following section.

Data Analysis

Cross Tabulation

 

We have carried out cross tabulation for several variables of our questionnaires. Firstly, we have cross tabulated household income with tuition class. Based on the results (Appendix 1), 58.33% of our low-income respondents will send their children for attending tuition class whereas the remaining 41.67% will not send their children to tuition class.

In order to further study the number of tuition classes being attended by their children, we have carried another cross tabulation between household income and sum of tuition classes attended. The types of tuition classes include school-related, language, drawing, music and dancing. By referring to the results (Appendix 2), half of the low-income respondents do send their children to attend at least one tuition class. It is followed by 5.95% of them sending their children to attend two tuition classes and 2.38% of their children are attending three tuition classes. There are 41.67% of the children do not attending any tuition classes and this figure have been mentioned in the above.

 

Besides that, we have also carried out cross tabulation for the level of education that the parents expect their children to achieve based on their household income. Based on the results obtained (Appendix 3), 21.43% of the respondents expect their children to study till SPM level only and 17.86% of them would expect their children to attain A-level or Diploma level of education. On the other hand, 42.86% of the low-income respondents expect their children to attain Degree level of education followed by Master with 13.1% and PHD with 4.76%.

 

Moreover, cross tabulation between the household income and saving for children’s education have also been done. By referring to the results (Appendix 4), more than half of the low-income respondents which are 51.19% do not save for their children’s education. The remaining 48.81% do save money for their children’s education.

We have also analysed the monthly saving amount of those who do save for children’s education (Appendix 5). Based on the results, 27.38% of the respondents save RM 100 and below; 10.71% save RM 101 to RM 200; and 3.57% save RM 201 to RM 300, RM 301 – RM 400 and RM 401 and above respectively.

 

 

Additionally, we have also cross tabulated the household income and the main reason that will affect parents’ decision to send their children to further their study. As referred to the results (Appendix 6), 14.29% of the low-income respondents would take children’s ability into consideration; relatives’ influence, 5.95%; children’s interest, 28.57%; financial, 46.43% and other reason, 4.76%.

 

Linear Regression

 

We have also conducted linear regression for household income (IV) and sum of tuition classes (DV). In this case, household income represents the independent variable and sum of tuition classes represents dependent variable. Based on the ANOVA table (Appendix 7), the value of F statistic which is 5.084 is the regression mean square divided by the residual mean square which is 2.100/0.413. The significant value of the F statistic is 0.026, which is smaller than the standard value, 0.05. Therefore, we can conclude that the independent variable, which is household income do explain the variation in the dependent variable which is tuition class.

Besides that, based on the model summary table (Appendix7), the value of R is 0.222 and the value of R² which is 0.049 represents how much of the dependent variable can be explained by the independent variable. By referring to the table in Appendix 7, 4.9% of the dependent variable can be explained by independent variable. As referred to the coefficients table, it provides the information on each predictor variable. The significant values of the constant and household income variable are 0.059 and 0.026 respectively. Based on the coefficients table, we are able to generate an equation as follow:

Low level of education = 0.338 + (0.145 x Household income)

Furthermore, we have also conducted linear regression for household income (IV) and level of education expected by parents (DV). In this case, household income represents the independent variable and the level of education expected by parents represents the dependent variable. Based on the ANOVA table (Appendix 8), the value of F statistic which is 6.117 is the regression mean square divided by the residual mean square which is 7.612/1.244. The significant value of the F statistic is 0.015, which is smaller than the standard value, 0.05. Therefore, we can conclude that the independent variable, which is household income do explain the variation in the dependent variable which is the level of education.

In addition, based on the model summary table (Appendix 8), the value of R is 0.242 and the value of R² which is 0.059 represents how much of the dependent variable can be explained by the independent variable. By referring to the table in Appendix 8, 5.9% of the dependent variable can be explained by independent variable. As referred to the coefficients table, it provides the information on each predictor variable. Both of the constant and household income variables are significant to the model as their significant value is less than 0.05. Therefore, we are able to generate an equation as follow:

                        Low level of education = 1.913 + (0.275 x Household income)



 

 

Design of Questionaire

In this particular stage, our group is discussing the question to be asked in the questionaire.

Before we think about the question for questionaire, we have decided to retain the data by using interview method. In this case, it shows that we have a very close interaction with our respondent when the time we would like to get our data.

After the discussion, we have successfully launched the question for questionaire:-

The above picture shown consists of 10 question which are used to further examine the IV-poverty and DV-Low education level of future generation. Based on these 10 questions, we have developed our questionaire from this questionaire into a formal questionaire with the appropriate parameter to measuring the questionaire.

There are 3 demographic question to be asked in the interview of survey, these three question consist of the number of children in a family, occupation, and the household income in each family. The demographic question here would probably able to define our target group to launch the interview survey.

 

 

Besides the demographic question, there are another 9 question that we have finalised to collect data of our IV-poverty and DV-Low education level of future generation.

 

The reason of asking these question is to fuether understand whether poverty is the main concern for parents to cultivate their child in higher education.

 

Therefore, we have defined the poverty level which their household income which is lower than RM3000 in a family, this is also the amount stated by government  to distribute the cash aid of RM500.

 



These are the question we created in order to test our Independent Variable (IV) - Poverty and Dependent Variable (DV) - Low Education level of future generation. These question have been approved by our Lecturer / Tutor Mr.Stephen Ong in advanced before we carried out our testing of the questionaire.

 

 

Ways to measure the IV and DV

The following stage would probably start to design our data collection, therefore, we would need to know where the data we would get from. As based on the picture below, we tried to deliver some question to ask from the Independent Variable (IV) and Dependent Variable (DV). This process is to ease our setting of questionaire in the next stage.

 

 

 

According to the model, it consists of 2 independent variables which are poverty and the low investment in education by government. However, our group merely manage to produce the measuring tools for the first IV and DV.

Therefore, at the end of the class, we have gone through a formal discussion on whether to remove the second IV (low investment in education by government), at the end of the discussion, we officially remove the second IV from our model and we have decided to concentrate only at the first IV which is poverty.

This was the first part before we launched the questionaire, as referred to the entire criteria of the project / assignment, after we have delivered the data collection, we are required to do the questionaire with not more than 20 question which are not including the demographic question.

In order to possess a better picture on how to run the questionaire, we would make it a clear and precise explanation in the tenth stage. Before the questionaire, our group are discussing on where is our target group to distribute the questionaire.

 

The target group and venue for our member to carry out the survey questionaire are those who parents who working in coffee shop, travel by bus and stay in the low cost area such as flat.

 

By having the three criteria, Mr. Stephen told us that we are required to find out 5 places for each criteria that we have written.

 

The picture below shown the criteria and places we have stated:-

 

There are clearly stated the place we are going to carry out our survey questionaire. Hence, our group member of 4 people have assigned to different places by our group leader - Wai Lam.

 

Yu Wai Lam (group leader) , he possess a car and able to travel to the place which is far from our college. Thus, Wai Lam would incharge of:-

• Taman Bunga Raya (Coffee shop)
• Taman Bunga Raya (Bus stop)
• Cheras (Flat area)
• Sri Rampai (Flat area)

Jiney Wong would probably incharge on the:-

• Wangsa Maju (Coffee shop)
• Wangsa Maju (Bus stop nearby the LRT station)
• Wangsa Maju (Flat area)

Li Chee Wah (Leonard) would incharge of his hometown (Raub,Pahang) and some of the KL area:-

• Raub, Pahang (Coffee shop)
• Genting Klang (Bus stop)
• Genting Klang (Coffee shop)
• Genting Klang (Flat area)

Tan Teck Kim (Janice) would incharge in several place that she familiar with:-

• Sri Rampai (Coffee shop)
• Jalan Pahang (Bus stop)
• Titiwangsa (Bus Stop)
• Sentul (Flat area)

As according to the requirement, we are requested to carry out 100 survey questionaire to get information in order to collect data on our subject matter. Thus, we have divided 100 pieces of questionaire into 4 person and each of us would probably incharge of 25 pieces of survey questionaire in different places.

 

 

Summaries and Analyse the result of hypotheses

Before we proceed our self as based on the time frame, we are required to review the response from our hypothesis testing on how public response on our question.

Let's finalise our finding based on the result of facebook:-

Question 1: Do u think should the education opportunity being given without considering gender difference?

Answer: YES / NO

Result from Question 1: All of the 22 respondent answer YES yet there are no respondent answer NO.

Question 2: What is the MOST important to you?

Answer: Higher education with no experience / Experience with low education / High education and experience

Result from Question 2: There are no respondent vote for the Higher education with no experience , 5 respondents votes for Experience with low education , lastly, there are 19 respondent votes for the High education and experience.

Question 3: Where do you from?

Answer: City / Rural Area

Result from Question 3: Out of 21 respondent, there are 12 respondent are from city, whereas, the remaining 9 respondent are from rural area.

Question 4 : Do you agree that female should have higher education level compare with male?

Answer : YES / NO

Result from Question 4: Out of 26 respondent, there are 17 respondent disagree (NO) with the above statement and 9 respondent did agree (YES) with the above statement

Question 5 :In your opinion, what is the MAIN reason people give up study?

Answer : Financial / Personal preference / Peers influence / Family

Result from Question 5: Out of 28 respondent for this particular question, there are 15 respondent votes for financial, 12 respondent votes for personal preference and 1 respondent votes for peers influence.

Question 6 : What is your current education level?

Answer : ( Certificate / Diploma ) / SPM / PMR

Result from Question 6: Out of 24 respondent from this question, 21 respondent possess diploma qualification and there are only 3 respondent possess SPM qualification.

These are the hypotheses that our group have tested in the facebook, for more information, please search our facebook main page at http://www.facebook.com/janice.tan.108#!/AHR1.BR.ASSIGNMENT?fref=ts