The Malaysian Youth Council (MBM) aimed to select 10 Malaysians aged up to 35 years old to serve as "youth advisors" to the prime minister, according to its president Jufitri Joha.
An initial recruitment poster from MBM and the Youth and Sports Ministry listed a minimum age requirement of 15 and academic qualification of at least a degree.
This mismatch raised questions on social media, including from Sekolah Alternatif founder Mukmin Nantang, who remarked that only students at his school for stateless children could have "graduated" by the age of 15 with a "degree" in alternative education.
On Twitter, lawyer Syahredzan Johan shared the poster and said: "Even though you still can't vote, you can still be the PM's youth advisor!"
When contacted, Jufitri said the original poster shared online was erroneous and has been corrected to remove the minimum age requirement.
However, he said the minimum degree qualification has been retained, effectively limiting the prospective candidate pool to an average of 21 years old.
"In my speech on behalf of MBM at the National Youth Day last Aug 15, I suggested the idea to form a group of youth advisors so that their ideas on national policies and development can be directly channelled to the prime minister.
"They will also work towards realising the policies and projects," he told Malaysiakini.
"After my speech, it was the prime minister's speech and he welcomed the idea, agreeing to have a group of youth advisors," said Jufitri, adding that MBM was partly inspired by a similar initiative taken by Indonesian President Joko Widodo to appoint youth advisors from different backgrounds.
For the selected participants, he said they will be exposed to direct day-to-day policy-making and governance processes, aside from opportunities for additional training in both fields.
Unlike past government internship programmes run by the Prime Minister's Department that placed participants in various ministries, Jufitri said MBM as the umbrella body for registered youth organisations in the country will act as the youth advisors secretariat.
"The youth advisors will not be a full-time position, but there will be periodic meetings and assignments set by the secretariat led by MBM.
"MBM has been given the opportunity to lead, instead of the Youth and Sports Ministry, so that it would be more NGO-based.
"We open the application to the public so all capable and credible youths could have an opportunity to serve the country," he added.
Other conditions for the applications accepted until Feb 28 comprise having no prior convictions and not being declared bankrupt. - Mkini
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