Understanding the Importance of Empowering Political Education for Malaysian Youths' Human Development

This is an extended abstract of a journal extracted from a comprehensive thesis in understanding the importance of implementation and dissemination of political education on social media for youths’ political literacy, political socialization, and human development through empowered version of education, which is through civic and political education. With the youthification of democratic duty in Malaysia through the parliament-unanimous passing of Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2019 on article 119(1)(a) and article 119(4)(b) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, Malaysia becomes the ninth ASEAN country to minimize voting age to eighteen, allowing youths barely reaching legal age to participate in electoral duty, making political education much more needed for Malaysian youths’ political literacy, in order to allow them to make rational political decisions and contribute to nation’s political security, which is a vital element of human security and human development as advocated by the United Nations. The results concluded that political education in Malaysia is allegedly inadequate in national education levels, thus the lack of formal platforms for such education allows
social media platforms to become alternative and predominant resources of political education, knowledge, information and socialization for youths’ consumption and perception making. This journal discusses the plausible impacts of youths’ human development with apparent awareness and literacy in politics towards society and nation, attained from in-depth interview on top-down perspectives with subject-matter experts.