MIRI: The Sarawak Youth Index Research can be used by youths to identify focus areas that are in need of improvement, to ensure that they would provide positive impact on youths in Sarawak.
According to Institute for Youth Research Malaysia (IYRES), the research, which kicked off last August, is aimed at assessing the quality of life and well-being of youths in Sarawak – at district level. It is learnt that the research is expected to reach completion this May.
“It involves 12 domains namely self-development, social relationships, identities, self-potential, health, education, economy, security, political socialisation, media transparency, leisure and deviant behaviours.
“This index will provide guidelines to all stakeholders including working youths, in identifying focus areas which are in need of improvements to ensure that they have positive impact on the quality and lives of youths in the state,” said IYRES in a statement.
Apart from that, stakeholders can draft, plan as well as implement suitable programmes based on the completed Sarawak Youth Index later on.
“IYRES is confident that the Sarawak Youth Index can be used as the base in designing various youth development programmes and activities in a more accurate and comprehensive way, involving implementations at state and district levels.
“Results of this IYRES research are hoped to improve the development of youths by acting as a benchmark to measure the quality and well-being of youths in the state,” it said, adding that it would also provide the input to help in the formulation and development of youth development policy at state and district levels in Sarawak.
“It will also steer the formation of action plan to improve the level of quality and well-being of youths in Sarawak.
“Among other things, it will provide input in the development of Sarawak Youth Policy and act as an indicator to measure the achievement of Malaysia Youth Policy (MYO),” it added.
A total of 517 census enumerators, four state coordinating officers and 24 division relations officers are involved in the data-collecting process for the research.
The process is made through distribution of questionnaires to 13,870 Sarawakian respondents, aged between 15 to 30 years old, across the 12 divisions and 31 districts in Sarawak.
The research is being carried out by IYRES, an agency under the Ministry of Youth and Sports, in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youths and Sports.