Vital for Ma’sia to invest in people — statistician
KOTA KINABALU: Emphasis on Malaysia being filled with more innovative and creative people is reflected in Budget 2018’s focus on human capital development, said Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
Uzir said it was important for a country to invest in its people and care for their education in order for it to reach its growth target.
“That is why the government is pushing for strong emphasis on education in the budget by increasing the security and funding for university, for example,” he said.
Uzir said for the nation to achieve this vision, better data from the DOSM was integral for an effective education planning that includes pertinent facts from the grassroots level.
Those same data also will ultimately be used for an effective growth nationwide.
“In terms of the Department of Statistics, the numbers or statistics for planning is very important,” he reiterated.
“We’re going to continue to come up with the statistics that is needed by the country, ministries and their agencies in order for the government to have very good and proper planning based on fact and numbers,” he explained.
Uzir said the cabinet had given consent for DOSM to work with the Economic Planning Units (EPU) in the states and would work much closer with the country’s local authorities to retrieve a more precise data.
“The planning now is not so much of the central level. We need the empowerment of the local authority at the local areas as we need more granular statistics from the small areas,” he shared.
“The statistics need to be more thorough in terms of concept and definition so the data needs to be consistent. We do not want to come up with data that is very confusing or contradicting,” he added.
Uzir said the government had tasked DOSM to take on the role of coordination and would further engage with the state and local area EPUs to retrieve information on the requirements and improvement suggestions for a customized and general growth planning for each state in Malaysia.
The third Malaysia Budget 2018 thrust focuses on empowering education, skills and trainings, and talent development.
This includes the RM2.5 billion to rebuild and upgrade dilapidated schools, RM2.9 billion food assistance, textbooks, capita grant assistance and federal scholarships and RM4.9 billion in the Malaysia Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) Masterplan.