Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has denied that the Perdana Fellowship Programme, under which which undergraduates and graduates will be assigned as interns to cabinet ministers, is politically motivated.

Instead, he stressed that the programme is to allow the government to understand the aspirations and views of the youth, and thus come up with policies that are youth-friendly.

“No, but it’s in the sense that (it’s) one way of reaching out to young people through public policy, (that) is to make sure that policies the government introduces are friendly to young Malaysians (and) that (shows the government) understands the aspiration of young Malaysians,” he said.

NONE Khairy was responding to a question on the aims of the internship programme during a press conference today, after having luncheon with the first batch of the interns, which consists of 70 participants.

According to the press release given by the organisers, besides having ‘stragegic engagement’ with the students and to identify future leaders of the country, it also stated that the purpose of the programme is to brand the government as a ‘youth-friendly government’.

“From political consideration, young voters today represent 42 percent of the total of voters and this will reach 49 percent in the coming general election,” it states.

It also states out that this programme will give exposure and understanding to the youngsters on the administration of the government so that they will become “envoys” and “informal spokespersons” for the government and thus rebut negative perception by certain parties.

Nevertheless, the Umno Youth chief said that one internship programme will not help much in terms of improving the image of the BN government.

'We have to make substantial changes'

“Ultimately, to improve the image (of the government), we have to make substantial changes. (It’s) not enough just to do an internship programme and suddenly the young people (will) say, ‘eh, this is the government which is acceptable to young people’.

“We have to follow this up constantly and consistently (and) coming up policies and programmes which address (the) concerns of the young people,” he added.

The participants of the Perdana Fellowship Programme are having their orientation week at the International Youth Centre, Kuala Lumpur, before they start their internship next week.

They will be assigned in pairs to a cabinet minister and get allowances during the period.

For a graduate, the internship period is between three months and six months, and they can receive RM3,000 allowance per month. Otherwise, an undergraduate’s internship period is between six weeks and three months, while they can get RM1,500 allowance per month.

Meanwhile, when asked about his opinion regarding Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s remark on preserving the Sedition Act, Khairy left the conference while the question was being asked.

According to his press secretary, he needed to rush to his Rembau constituency for other programmes.