Questions/Answers

The 1Malaysia Training Scheme (SL1M) was launched on the 1st of June 2011 under the supervision of Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department to curb graduates unemployment. It addresses this issue through a training programme that helps young graduates enhance their marketability with appropriate skills, knowledge and working experience. This will eventually lead to a higher possibility of career advancement for them in future. The module of this programme is specifically tailored to suit the needs of participating companies, as it involves both classroom training (max. two months) and on-the-job training (max. ten months). Classroom training comprises of soft-skills modules that involves communications; creative and analytical thinking; organizational adaptability; value-driven professionalism; grooming and etiquette. For on the job training, participants will be trained to work like an employees and be given mentorship. They will be paid minimum monthly allowances of RM1,500.00. This Programme was realized through strong collaboration between Government Link Companies (GLCs) and private companies using the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). SL1M particularly targets graduates from rural poor, urban poor, and vulnerable families including those who lives in remote areas. SL1M also helps to make compatible those whose employment, education background and skills were mismatched. In efforts to maintain strong collaboration with GLCs and private companies, the Government has implemented two types of incentives, either the Double Tax Deduction effective from June 2012, where companies will obtain double tax deduction on expenses spent on SL1M trainees including training cost and monthly allowances, and the other incentive is the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF) Scheme which started to be effective in April 2014. These incentives are a great encouragement for companies to give back to the society at large.

SL1M was established to enhance graduate’s employability before they enter the workforce, with the main objective of equipping them with holistic and sufficient aptitude and attitude. We recognised that most Malaysian graduates have not been able to hone in their soft skills throughout their education journey. In fact, an internal research and survey done by the Central Bank of Malaysia has identified that the main factor contributing to graduate’s unemployability was the limitation in soft skills. Specifically, they comprise of the incompetency in communication skills, creative and analytical thinking, adaptability in an organization, and a results-driven attitude. Hence, SL1M helps fill in the gap to smoothen their transition from university to the workforce. The direct impact through the on-the-job training would be applied to expose graduates with real work and industry challenges. From the same research, 80% shows that those needed to be asisted the most are graduates who came from rural areas, urban poor and extreme poverty. This itself has led to another objective of SL1M to resolve the root of the issue within these target groups by improving their self-confidence and personal development, in which would subsequently lift them out of old mindsets and low motivation to succeed.

SL1M reaches out to marginalized graduates living in extreme poverty from rural areas by giving them more direct access to the job market that are mostly in urban areas. In realization of this vision, SL1M conducts walk-in and open interviews all over the nation with GLCs and private sector companies, with a focus on outback locations. For example, for one of the outreach programs in Sabah state, SL1M particularly chose a small town in the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu called Sepanggar so that graduates from other smaller towns could have the opportunity to access job opportunities that are similar in scale to the city centre (Kuala Lumpur). In the outreach program, we centralized GLCs and private companies, providing graduates with about 100 walk-in interview booths with thousand of job offers in one location. This helps them to save flight costs, time and accommodation expenses as most interviews and jobs are located in urban areas. In addition, these vulnerable graduate groups who are generally less equipped in their soft skills are more prone to not be considered for employment in conglomerate companies. Through SL1M however, doors to absorption in those companies are open and directly connected to them.

Based on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs), SL1M helps with the main objective to end poverty in all its forms and living no one behind. When one graduate from a poor family living in the rural secures a job, it will impact the family with an increased socio-economic status. Malaysians are categorized into three different income groups: Top 20% (T20), Middle 40% (M40), and Bottom 40% (B40). The success story lies in graduates from the B40 moving out into M40 as soon as they obtain a job at one of the GLCs or any other company. In this case, they are better off to provide medical facilities for their parents, education for the youngest and quality basic needs. SL1M also help small entrepreneurs especially fresh graduates who are interested in business by providing free commercial spaces and facilities for them during outreach programs. Based on the lack of strategic geographical location in their area, this is the turning point for them to improve their socio-economic status. Developing entrepreneurship is another approach to encourage graduates about the option of creating and innovating their own career path by being their own boss and creating jobs for others.

In Malaysia, youth especially young ladies who are far from development and from poor background are not exposed to self-development and career progression. People in this demographic normally live without natural drive to obtain careers out of their comfort zone. They are scared of risk to survive in the corporate jungle. Youths from this demographic usually are satisfied as long as they are able to feed them self with no ambition to utilize their degree certificate. Limitation in term of accessibility and networking plays major roles too. To cater to this polemic, SL1M outreach them by bringing GLCs and private sectors to SL1M Open Interview throughout Malaysia.We provide youths from this demographic more excess to current job market by providing walk in interview booths with thousands of job vacancies for each Outreach. We also specifically allocate an open stage that was scheduled for sharing sessions from well-known motivators, influential celebrities and industrial experts. We saw positive impact for this approach by observing the improvement of their natural drive, self-motivation and willingness to go beyond their rural comfort zone. From 2011 until today, SL1M managed to assist more than 140,000 graduates to soar extra mile and finally break their traditional sentiment.

Youth unemployment rate in Malaysia was estimated to have reached 10.7% in 2016, more than three times higher than the national unemployment rate of 3.5%. Based on the Central Bank of Malaysia's Annual Report 2016, cautious business sentiments and moderating economic performance have restrained businesses from expanding their workforce. The youth are the most vulnerable to these trends; they are likely to be the last to be hired and the first to be made redundant due to their lack of experience, higher information asymmetry on the labour market and poor ability to communicate their skills effectively to employers. With SL1M, we solve this issue by providing them holistic training components which equipped them with relevant soft skills and necessary working experience. 30% of SL1M trainees were successfully absorbed by the parent company where the remaining 70% may secure a job at other companies, be an entrepreneur or further their studies to higher level. SL1M training help graduates to achieve added value in terms of skills, knowledge, professional working experience and sufficient business exposure. This successful youth from the targeted demographic will transform their income group from B40 to M40. Indirectly, this transformation will lead to national growth and economic aggregation.

SL1M was recognized as an innovative initiative that resulted from Public and Private CSR Cooperation. SL1M is the only Government initiative that is fully borne by the private sectors and was proven to be successful in increasing marginalize graduate’s employability which indirectly increase their family's social economic status. Madam Michaela Prokop of the Regional Program Advisor, SDGs, Bangkok Regional Hub of UNDP when interviewed by SL1M in December 2017 has also encouraged other developing countries to learn this initiative and implement it at their countries. Since the implementation of SL1M from 2011, this programme has successfully save more than MYR 2 billion of the Government's money as it is fully founded by the private sector This is a brilliant monetary policy which have long run impact to human capital. The Government has saved the relative cost of taking the action to curb graduate's unemployment crisis without spending any budget on its implementation. We believe that this same amount of money may been utilized to cater on any other issues on poverty. This successful Public and Private Partnership has helped more than 142, 000 unemployed young graduates in bridging them to better career platform.

SL1M was a continuation from a programme that was already running since 2009 in the Central Bank of Malaysia (BNM) spearheaded by an Iron Lady, Puan Hajah Norashikin Datuk Haji Ismail and her assistant Puan Mariani Mohamed Idris. It was a successful programme founded on the idea of charity which had benefited hundreds of hopefuls. In 2011, YAB Prime Minister, Dato' Sri Najib Tun Abdul Razak instructed for a nationwide expansion of the BNM CSR Programme. He envisioned that graduates could also have the opportunity to train in other private and Government Linked Companies (GLC). The iron lady and her assistant were seconded to Economic Planning Unit (EPU) at the Prime Minister's Department to realize this vision. With two desks and two chairs parked under EPU they started to build SL1M. Contrary to popular belief, SL1M is not a multi-million dollars Government-backed project. It relies on the support of devoted participating companies. Thanks to them, the SL1M team which consists of only 15 young officers whom are the underprivileged SL1M trainees themselves could breathe and work wonders. The costly affair of SL1M's activities is borne by industry players who believe in this noble course and agree to collaborate with SL1M.

Economic Transformation Program (ETP), an initiative by the Malaysian government to turn Malaysia into a high income economy by 2020. In 2015, Khazanah Nasional Berhad (an investment company) initiates smart partnership between the Government and private sector through CSR implementation of SL1M which was highly accepted by 30 GLCs such as Boustead, Maybank, Sime Darby and many other big conglomerate names. They will report the progress of their SL1M CSR on quarterly basis in the White Room Meeting chaired by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, YAB Dato' Sri Najib Tun Abdul Razak. The Prime Minister are directly involved in this agenda and proud to see the GLCs commitment and support towards SL1M. Since 2011, SL1M trainees' budget are fully borne by the participating companies in term of monthly allowances, soft skills training , on the job training and other basic needs of the programme to groom the underprivileged graduates. There are few companies who performed the extra mile by providing accommodations, transportation reimbursement and meal allowances. The Federal Government also supported SL1M by providing annual financial funding to organize SL1M Open Interview throughout Malaysia as part of the "Search & Assist" initiatives to reach out to the rural job seekers.

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In 2013, SL1M modus operandi was adapted to SL1M-Nurse programme under the Ministry of Health targeting unemployed graduates with diploma in nursing to undergo on-the-job training with private clinic and hospital. Successful nursing graduates will be placed in selected clinic or hospital for minimum 1-year duration where they can polish their clinical skill as well as soft skills to improve their employability to secure job. Other than that, Graduate Enhancement Training Scheme (GETS) by the Sarawak state government also use the similar structure; consists of both structured training and job exposure at participating companies. The scheme targeted unemployed graduates with both degree or diploma holder. Industries participated benefited from the programme by getting new talent and they can claim monthly allowance paid to trainees from the State Government. Besides that, SL1M was also honoured to receive representatives from the University College of Dublin, Ireland; as arranged by the H.E Ambassador of Ireland in Kuala Lumpur; the University Officers came twice in year 2016 to learn and get more knowledge on how SL1M programme was implemented in Malaysia. They are benchmarking the similar principle in addressing the unemployment issue in Ireland.

Today, SL1M has eliminated the unconscious bias in corporate industries in terms of hiring criteria through the intake of marginalized graduates into big companies for SL1M programme. Without SL1M, social ranking and demographic factors plays major role in recruiting fresh graduates as employees. For example, graduates from rural areas and extreme poverty will attend the interview session with improper corporate dress code, low self-esteem and bad command of English while graduates from educated family background will appear with good communication skills and superb appearance. Normally, the hiring officer will recruit the outstanding grads that look professional. For SL1M programme, the marginalized grads will be prioritized as our agenda is to give them chances to grow and prosper. SL1M has created thousands of testimonies in which many less fortunate grads were transformed and groomed into an outstanding corporate character. This will balance the social and economic equality between people from rural areas and urbanize community which indirectly bridging the social and economic gap between the rich and the poor. Other than social and economic factor, SL1M bring the new trend on Public and Private CSR collaboration. To date, SL1M received impressive support from companies, government agencies, academia, societies and the public communities. This positive environment indirectly will sustain this programme for a longer time. Today more than 1000 private companies reunite as major player and 250 000 unemployed graduates registered their interest to be part of us. SL1M social media has reached to 89,271 Malaysian followers from all walks of life and every SL1M Outreach programme usually attract 20,000 audiences in average. In the eyes of the society at large, SL1M is a real life “Zero to Hero” success stories which touches the life of thousand underprivileged families.

Each year, the numbers of unemployed graduates increased tremendously due to slower hiring which had a wider impact on the economy, affecting particularly youth and new job seekers. Malaysian Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh announced in August 2017 that 54,103 graduates were unemployed six months after they completed their studies. To cater to this issue, Prime Minister of Malaysia Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak who is also the Minister of Finance has urged all companies who received any Government tender to participate in SL1M Programme through the implementation of SL1M in Government's treasury. Every beneficiary from Government contract above threshold value are compulsory to allocate 1% from their contract value to groom SL1M trainees. All Government tenders' funding comes from the tax payers money, hence, it is wise for the companies receiving the tender to give back to the society. This will create more training and career opportunity in the country. SL1M will sustain as long as there are unemployed graduates looking for career paths and companies who want to sustain their business while giving back to the society.

Si

SL1M programme was crowned as the most innovative project by EPU and Prime Minister’s Department via competition of “Innovation Awards of EPU” and “Innovation Awards of the Prime Minister’s Department” in 2012 and 2013 respectively. In the competition, SL1M fulfilled the criteria measured which were Significance, Efficiency, Creativity, Innovative, Relevancy and Replicability. SL1M also represented EPU in the “National Innovation Awards” in 2014. In 2015, SL1M was shortlisted as a top 5 in the “Prime Minister’s Innovation Awards”. SL1M related topics are continuously debated in the parliament of Malaysia each and every time the convene occurs to ensure its continuing relevancy. Economic Planning Unit's Minister will report on SL1M's progress to the members of the Parliaments through facts and figures and it's impact to the society as a whole.

SL1M programme was recognised nationally as a tool to help improve graduates’ employability and contribute in developing nation’s human capital directly to the benefeciries. For example, a young graduates named Pajilawati Sakibun from the rural poor areas in Sabah who was once a victim of status bias by the society. Now, she is the only one who managed to graduate from university become the bread winner of the family, the first one who owned a car and subsequently uplift totally changed her family socio-economy to a respectable stature in her clan. SL1M is also able to able to convince and engage more stakeholders from universities, Government agencies, societies, as well as attract more industry players to get involved in this noble programme. Many collaborations were executed with universities to ensure graduates especially those who are in their final year are equipped with essential industry driven skills and ready to enter the job market upon finishing their study. Many companies have also open their hearts and doors to participate in this “SL1M in University” programme,to help these undergraduates in obtaining job exposure much earlier even before they graduate from their universities.

SL1M programme is evaluated based on the values of creativity, relevancy, efficiency, significance, cost savings, innovativeness and replicability. SL1M programme creatively and innovatively make use of available resources where smart collaboration between the Government and industry in executing the programme has help avoid wasting of human capital. Smart partnerships were also built with various parties; for instance, media where promotion for SL1M programme were given free of charge or at very minimal cost. Besides, the programme is also relevant to Government sector as civil service is no longer the main job market targeted by graduates. Graduates nowadays are facing an intense competition to secure jobs, thus SL1M become one of the platform for them to improve their marketability and give high value to their profile. To reach out to more graduates, SL1M efficiently use various channels provided by other agencies to give more training opportunities. The programme significantly in-line with the Government’s effort to empower nation’s human capital as stated in the 10th Malaysia Plan in “Developing and Maintaining World Class Human Capital”. SL1M was being benchmarked and replicated in SL1M-Nurse under the Ministry of Health and used as a benchmark study by Ministry of Defence to establish a new programme for unemployed defense veterans through Veteran Hiring Programme.

SL1M engaged various parties; ranging from Government, academia and industry players in implementing this programme. SL1M gather ideas and feedback from industry on the critical values lack in local graduates to design the programme structure and come up with the five soft skill modules in SL1M. Besides that, close collaboration established with all 24 Ministries in ensure the smooth implementation of SL1M in the Government’s procurement by industries. SL1M also receive assistance from Ministry of Finance in designing the Government procurement circular to enforce the new policy effective in August 2017. Strong support from Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and Ministry of Human Resource (MOHR) enable SL1M to help more local talent to get better job and improve their livelihood at once. SL1M leverage MOHR’s facility at the Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) nationwide as platform to reach more graduates. In addition, smart partnership with MOHE and academia also built to reach final year students in universities to give corporate exposure by bringing in the industry into universities. SL1M Open Interview Programme also organized every year nationwide; offering thousands of training and job opportunities to all job seekers regardless of their academic qualification and leaving no one behind.For those who are interested to become an entrepreneur, SL1M also engaged with SME Corporation in SL1M-TUBE programme. In this programme, successful participants will undergo a comprehensive training and personal coaching to be a successful entrepreneur. At the end of the training, an initial capital worth of RM 15,000 granted as financial assistance for them to start their business; henceforth help to create more job opportunity in the job market.

After 7 years of SL1M implementation, we observed impactful values that contribute to nation building and economic aggression which indirectly bridges the gap between the richest and the poorest in Malaysia. This initiative are proven to be inline with 3 goals from the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which are Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities. This programme has proven that with strong and smart partnership between public and private sectors thousands life of beneficiaries has changed in a reputable manner. To further improve this initiative, SL1M is in the process to collaborate with the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) to implement SL1M at University. This approach has been approved by MOHE Minister, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh as he is concern about the national graduate's employability rate especially in the current bearish economy scenario. By this approach, graduate's will have immediate exposure for SL1M right after they finished their final exam prior to their convocation. Another method to widen the target groups of this agenda, we plan to organize smaller outreach programme at locations that are further isolated to reach out to people who are further away from the development.