INDIGENOUS STUDENTS’ CHALLENGES IN PURSUING HIGHER EDUCATION: A CASE OF RAUB PAHANG.

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the challenges that indigenous students face in pursuing higher education. Indigenous students are a group of people who often face difficulties and obstacles in accessing higher education. Despite having a strong desire to pursue education at a higher level, indigenous students often encounter various challenges. Using a qualitative method, data was collected through interviews with four counsellors in selected high schools at Raub. Based on the findings, there are four factors identified that lead to challenges among indigenous students from the teacher’s perspective. The factors are mentality, low self-confidence, improper financial planning, and language barrier have become significant reasons to discourage indigenous students from pursuing higher education. For mentality factor leave the family and students feel comfortable with current lifestyle. Students also have difficulties dealing with self-confidence levels to take part in the learning process. We also found that most indigenous students are not facing a lack of financial support but rather having improper financial management. School funds have been used for other purposes rather than spending on education expenditure. Many indigenous students have low mastery skills in Bahasa Melayu thus limiting their ability to gain knowledge in school. All these factors are contributing to challenges faced by indigenous students to further study in the future. In the future, the study will proceed to investigate the challenges of pursuing higher education from indigenous students’ perspective.