Inputs from Malaysia Youth Index 2015 for youth development programmes

The Youth and Sports Ministry will utilise inputs from the Malaysian Youth Index 2015 (IBM15) to establish focused youth development programmes.

Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said inputs from the IBM15, which was an assessment of well-being among youths in Malaysia should be used to establish the government's policies, and not merely be used as reference.

"It (IBM15) should be translated into implementations and actions," he told reporters after joining the IBM 2015 Talk Show at the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) here Thursday.

He said the ministry would set up an IBM15 action plan through focused development programmes based on the results of a study involving 6,100 youth respondents nationwide.

The Malaysian Institute for Research in Youth Development, which was responsible to develop the IBM15 had been asked to hold workshops nationwide to explain the importance of the study findings to the public, added Khairy.

IBM15 contains 12 domains and 58 indicators, which are produced by means of a survey on youths from different ethnic, locality, gender and background.

Khairy said among the 12 domains were political socialisation, economic well-being, use of media and social relations.

He said the private sector could also refer to the IBM15 to enable them to provide more accurate services based on the opinion of young people.

Khairy said the overall score for the IBM15 was 70.22, which was considered as moderate, with deviant behaviour-free domain recording the highest score at 89.45, while the lowest was 45.82 for political socialisation domain.