Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid has instructed all schools in the country to provide a complaints box for students to volunteer information confidentially to help check student misconduct, especially involvement in crime.

The information provided by the students would be scrutinised by teachers in charge of discipline and, if necessary, forwarded to the police, he said.

"The information from the students will be kept confidential. Students need not fear volunteering information about fellow students involved in any form of misconduct.

"This comes under the supervision of the discipline teachers and the information will be conveyed to the school liaison officers," he said to reporters after launching the 2017 national-level 'Jom ke Sekolah' (Let's Go to School) programme at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Dato' Syed Ahmad here.

Also present at the event were Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, Kedah Police chief Datuk Asri Yusoff and Kedah Education director Datuk Azuyah Hassan.

Mahdzir said the main objective of the programme was to overcome absenteeism among students due to their being forced to work or getting involved in crime.

"Absenteeism in some schools has caused the percentage of attendance to drop," he said.

He said that on the average the national student attendance in 2016 was 94.1 per cent for primary schools and 91.4 per cent for secondary schools.

"The overall national average has been set at 92.3 per cent, and the focus of the ministry and police is to improve this figure," he said.

The minister appealed to parents and parent-teacher associations in schools to help out in this area.

"We fear that students skipping school may be involved in serious crimes and may end up being convicted unless this problem in solved," he said. -- Bernama