MIC Youth welcomes government's '6E' approach to empower youths

The MIC Youth has welcomed the government's move in outlining the '6E' approach taken to empower the country's youths.

It's Youth Chief C. Sivaraaj said the move is timely and crucial in engaging as well as including youths in nation building.

“The 6Es' must be seen as a realistic and workable measure to empower the youths and prepare them to lead the nation in all sectors by 2020,” he told Astro AWANI.

Sivaraaj said eventhough the approach by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is an engagement programme for the younger people, its implementation should be monitored closely.

“The implementation of the programme should be monitored and constantly changed according to the needs and youth eco-system.

“Hopefully, we can build charismatic, innovative and disciplined youth generation with this initiative, which is an essence in developing countries like Malaysia and Singapore,” he said.

Yesterday, Najib outlined the ‘6E’ initiatives, referred to engagement, empowerment, education, entrepreneurship, social enterprise and experience.

He added by widening the platform for the youths to voice their opinions, the feedback received would be seen as more comprehensive.

"Because of that, we have the Youth Parliament to complement the Malaysian Youth Council (MBM) platform and National Youth Consultation Council. Perhaps in the future other platforms can be considered.

"Also no less important is the social media that indirectly forms a big vehicle. We summarise this with the desire to have more engagement because today's youth is different from the young people of before," Najib had said.

Touching on the empowerment aspect, the prime minister said it included giving the youth opportunities in various careers, including representatives in parliament, government administration and state legislative assembly,

For that objective, he welcomed suggestions to amend the definition of youth age from 15 to 40 years to 15 to 30 years as outlined in the National Youth Policy Draft.

He said the Youth and Sports Ministry would also discuss with the Defence Ministry to formulate new curriculum for the National Service Training (PLKN) programme.