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Malaysian Education System Producing Unemployable Graduates.

Citizenship is a legally defined way of looking at membership of a particular state. By having a citizenship, a person must abide to the rules of the particular country. It also forms a person’s identity which tells us who we are. A person having citizenship is confined between the borders of the state. The borders of the state give a person a sense of belonging and recognition thus forming a person’s identity. ‘Citizenship is a core identity. As citizens, people develop a sense of belonging to a country and a community’ (Owen 2004). Therefore, citizenship indeed has changed in relation to understandings of belonging and membership.

Today, there are two main ways of obtaining a citizenship in Malaysia which is the place of birth or parentage. Another way of being a citizen of Malaysia is through naturalization. As Dower puts it, ‘the three methods to determine an individual’s citizenship are through parentage, place of birth or naturalization’(Dower 2003, p.37). Due to the three ways of obtaining a citizenship status, it is possible for a person to have dual or multiple citizenship.   A legal citizenship in Malaysia can be constituted by the place of birth which means a person born in Malaysia would automatically possess a Malaysian citizenship under certain conditions governing the Malaysian citizenship. These conditions include a person born in Malaysia on or after Independence Day ( 31 August 1957 ) and before October 1962, a person who is a citizen of Malaysia before Independence Day by virtue of the provisions of the Federation of Malaya Agreement, 1948, and a person born within Malaysia who is not born a citizen of another country(National Registration Department 2007). Next would be a legal citizenship in Malaysia by parentage which means a person must be of age younger than 21 and has at least one parent holding a Malaysian citizenship. Lastly, it would be legal citizenship in Malaysia through naturalization. Naturalization happens when a foreigner...