Official pie-charts depict the age breakdown for Sarawak Electorate as at Dec 2020 and Dec 2021.
KUCHING (June 19): Intentional and age-appropriate civic and voter education is needed in line with Undi18 implementation, says Rise of Social Efforts (ROSE).
“Indeed the responsibility to inculcate responsible or smart voters amongst the young falls on each of the stakeholders and cannot be just on the Election Commission (EC) alone.
“Civil society organisations, political parties, educators and even parents must play our roles in building responsible citizenry,” it said in a statement yesterday.
The statement was in response to the suggestion of Minister of Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah for age-appropriate civic and voter education to be introduced in upper secondary schools, and for the ministry to supplement the role of the federal ministry to educate young voters.
According to ROSE, more than 675,077 Sarawakians have been added to the electoral roll since the implementation of Undi18 in December last year.
Out of the total number of voters at 1,927,750 as at Dec 31, 2021, it said 28.54 percent or about 550,000 individuals comprised those from the 18-29 age group who can vote in the coming 15th General Election.
The ideal scenario, it added, is for everyone in the age-group to go out to vote as they are the ones whose lives and future will be most impacted by government policies and decisions.
“The increase in the number of young voters will be meaningless if they do not know the value of their vote nor bother to participate as voters in the election. This will not augur well for the state of democracy in our beloved land.
“Civic and voters Education has been a core focus of our organization goals and we run activity-based and interactive civic/voter education workshops such as the Bengkel Kesedaran Demokrasi Belia in 2020, to increase awareness and knowledge of participants about the role and responsibilities, rights and duties of a citizen in a parliamentary democracy.
“We take this opportunity to welcome enquiries from any educational institutions or schools or other organizations within Sarawak to contact us if they are interested in conducting training or collaborating with us in other ways. Our email address is [email protected] ,” it said.