Its minister, Hannah Yeoh, said the existing programme is confusing to industry players as it is being run under multiple ministries.

“Thus, the youth and sports ministry will work with the human resources ministry to restructure the programme.

“Each ministry will no longer run their own TVET programme, which has resulted in it being disorganised, unfocused, and leading to wastage of resources,” she said, according to Berita Harian.

For example, she said, each ministry would need a RM50 million allocation to upgrade the TVET programme. However, student intake is not maximised and this also leads to manpower shortage later on.

Yeoh said some courses under the programme may no longer be relevant as youths now prefer flexible working hours or venturing into the gig economy.

“If you ask them now, many of them are more interested in becoming YouTubers or influencers. So, if we continue to offer courses that are not attractive, we would not get their full participation (in the programme),” she said.

She also highlighted the importance of the TVET programme in tackling unemployment, and quoted the statistics department’s figures which showed that unemployment rates have dipped to 7% from 7.4% in October 2022.

Separately, Yeoh said the ministry is formulating an intervention strategy to help over 10,507 individuals aged 25 to 34 years old who have been declared bankrupt.

“We have begun talks with several ministries, especially the finance ministry, and the insolvency department on how to help this group of people,” she said, adding that plans mooted went beyond awareness programmes.