IT is no longer a fashion to be old, it seems. If 40 is too old to be young, what is? Is 30 the new 40? Maybe. At least, in certain states. Does age change if we cross borders? Can one turn old in one space then return young in another? To push this idea thus is to make time a little too metaphysical.
Granted, definition helps. The erstwhile Youth Societies and Youth Development 2007 (Act 668) itself defines youth to be between the ages of 15 and 40. But the United Nations has other ideas.
For the UN, a youth is one who is between the ages of 15 and 24. There is a caveat here, though. It is but for a statistical purpose.
The UN’s definition is, it claims, without prejudice to member states’ own definition. This is because not all cultures are in agreement as to when exactly the young start to get old.
But beyond definition, youth matter. And they count on those who lead to make life better for them. It is here that our energy should be directed at. Not on definitions per se. There is plenty that can be done.
Take the case of youth unemployment. There is a lot to worry about here according to Khazanah Research Institute’s A Statistical Snapshot of Youth Unemployment, 2011 to 2018 published on June 13. Its brief verdict is: youth unemployment has risen over the years. And what’s worse, the youth unemployment rate last year — 10.92 per cent — was three times the national unemployment rate of 3.30 per cent.
This means, for every unemployed adult, there were close to five unemployed youths. Regionally too we are not faring well. Except for Indonesia, our youth unemployment rate is higher than that prevailing in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Bank Negara Malaysia’s annual report published in March points to a similar dismal scenario. Universities, it says, are producing more graduates than what the market can absorb: 173,457 graduates were chasing 98,514 high-skilled jobs. Some are resorting to low-skilled jobs just to make ends meet. This should not be the case.
Clearly, there is a conundrum at play here: young graduates can’t find the jobs they are seeking, while employers fail to get the skilled workers they want. Perhaps the two institutions — universities and industries — are arguing from different premises. The two must start talking to each other.
Perhaps they are, but not enough and as often as they should. McKinsey & Company’s report on Education to employment: Designing a system that works offers an insight that many here continue to miss: the education-to-employment system is like a highway where three drivers — educators, employers and young people — want to get to the same destination.
To move forward smoothly, each driver needs to take account of the others. To be oblivious of the others is to leave everybody worse off. If this happens, the young may not forgive us. And the old? They may not be able to forget.