EDITOR'S NOTE: A portion of the Minister's quotes have been removed pending verification.

The Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF), which was allocated RM30 million in the 2020 Budget, will fund skills training for youths from low-income families, Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran said.

This is because the collection of loan repayments to the Skills Development Fund Corporation (PTPK), which funds youth skills training, is still low.

“Loan given is RM3,000 and the monthly repayment is RM100. The recovery is difficult and we're looking for another mechanism to overcome it by setting aside the RM30 million and putting it in HRDF as a grant,” Kulasegaran said at a press conference after his ministry's monthly assembly yesterday.

According to him, the youths would be funded through the HRDF and this is one of the mechanisms to provide more opportunities for students to pursue their education at the public and private technical and vocational training centres (TVET) nationwide.

In addition, he said HRDF would expand the levy contribution by employers from 63 to 82 employment sub-clusters in line with the expansion of Table 1 under the Human Resource Development Act 2001, which saw the number of workers to receive training increase from 2.43 million to 2.7 million.

Kulasegaran said the Human Resources Ministry would form a committee to study the proposal by the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) where levy from foreign workers would be put back into a training apprenticeship, and that the locals would get employed and be trained by companies.

He said the ministry had proposed to amend some of the laws, such as the Employment Act 1955, the Trade Unions Act 1959 and the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994.

The ministry would also move to amend the Labour Ordinance (Sabah Chapter 67) and the Labour Ordinance (Sarawak Chapter 76), but submit the proposals only after engagements on the matter with the state governments of Sabah and Sarawak.

The ministry will also increase its international commitments by ratifying four conventions and one International Labour Organisation (ILO) protocol, the P29 (Protocol 2014 to Force Labour Convention), C105 (Abolition of Forced Labour), C188 (Fisheries Sector jobs), C190 (Violence and Harassment) and C142 (Human Resource Development), he said.

Kulasegaran said Malaysia would hand over the chair of the Asean labour to Indonesia in July this year. Earlier, the Human Resources Ministry would host the Asean Inter-Ministerial Forum on Green Jobs, on April 7 and 8.

- Bernama