The youth and young professionals definition in the Malaysian context.
The term “young” from the United Nation, refers to people who are aged 15 to 24 years old (Cumiskey et al. 2015). Meanwhile, the term ‘youth’ refers to the young generation who may leave obligatory education until they are hired for a first job. In the local context, youth constitute a resource of tremendous potential and they can contribute significantly to the development of the nation. The definition of youth and young professionals are varied in the country and very context-specific. The description of young was once mentioned in the National Youth Development Policy (1997) whereby young people who are between 15 – 40 can be assumed as youth. Previously, there was a plan to revise the definition of youth to 15 – 30 years old in the new soon to be implemented Malaysian Youth Policy in 2018. Due to the change of Government of Malaysia after the 2018 general election, the plan is still ongoing under the aegis of the Ministry of Youth and Sports Malaysia.
Previously, the age ranges are different in literature, for instance, those 13 – 25 who were born in the era of economic boom are called local young adults (Samsudin & Latifah 1999). Later, the Malaysian Youth Council has introduced the age range between 15 – 40 years old as a young generation in which others have accepted the. In addition to that, the Youth Societies and Youth Development Act or Act 668 reveal that the term ‘youth’ is associated with a young person who is not less than fifteen years old and does not exceed forty years old in age (Government of Malaysia, 2007). Recently, Nor Suzylah et al. (2018) have described young people who graduated with at least a Bachelor’s degree and are registered to professional institutions within age 25 – 35 are young professionals. Nor Suzylah et al. (2018) again has discussed the term “professional” according to the Ministry of Human Resources Malaysia (2010) which refer to people who demonstrate the proliferation of existing knowledge, apply the scientific and artistic concept and theories, teach about the foregoing in a systematic manner, or employ any of these three activities and involve the fourth skill level.
In a nutshell, using the above information as a basis, the U-INSPIRE Malaysia @ UKM defined youth and young professionals as the person who aged between 18 – 40 years old who graduated, have an independent profession with interest in the DRR and climate change. The person also should grow their personal and professional networks, build skills and be involved in the community.
References
Cumiskey, L., Hoang, T., Suzuki, S., Pettigrew, C. & Herrgård, M. M. 2015. Youth Participation at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 6(2): 150–163. doi:10.1007/s13753-015-0054-5
Government of Malaysia, 2007. Youth Societies and Youth Development. Act 2007. http://www.cljlaw.com/files/bills/pdf/2019/MY_FS_BIL_2019_12.pdf.
Ministry of Human Resources Malaysia, 2010. Country Report Malaysia: The Ninth ASEAN & Japan High Level Officials Meeting on Caring Societies: Human Resource Development in the sectors of Welfare and Health. Tokyo, Japan. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/kokusaigyomu/asean/2011/dl/Malaysia_CountryReport.pdf.
National Youth Development Policy, 1997. Ministry of Youth and Sports Malaysia. http://www.kbs.gov.my/akta-dasar/dasar.html.
Samsudin, A. R. & Pawanteh, L. 1999. The Emerging Generation: Media Penetration and the Construction of Identity Among Young Adults in Malaysia. Conference on Identities in Action, University of Wales, Abyswitch, hlm. 20.
Sohaimi, N. S., Abdullah, A. & Shuid, S. 2018. Determining housing affordability for young professionals in klang valley, Malaysia: Residual income approach. Planning Malaysia 16(2): 89–98.