IPOH, Oct 11 — Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh today said her ministry will use the expanded Rakan Muda allocation under Budget 2026 to help tackle youth unemployment, especially among those struggling with English proficiency.
She said reducing youth unemployment is one of the ministry’s key performance indicators.
“Among the youth group, one factor we’ve identified contributing to unemployment is that many are not proficient in English.
“So we will use the Rakan Muda programme and the additional allocation to strengthen training and empower young people so that we can lower the youth unemployment rate,” she told reporters after launching the National Sports Day programme in Meru here.
Yeoh said the RM40 million allocation for Rakan Muda – a 60 per cent increase from this year’s RM25 million – will help the ministry run more impactful youth empowerment programmes nationwide.
“The RM25 million we received this year was not sufficient, as we have about 10 lifestyle categories under this programme.
“So when we distribute the fund at district level, it’s often not enough to carry out special projects.
“Hopefully, with this additional allocation, we will be more specific in how we use it so we can achieve our key performance indicators,” she said.
Yeoh also expressed satisfaction with the overall RM580 million allocation for the sports sector under Budget 2026, saying it shows continued government commitment to sports development.
“Firstly, they have maintained the allocation for the Sports Matching Grant, which is very important to us.
“There is also an increase of RM2 million for the Road to Gold under the new budget. For 2025, we received RM10 million, and for next year we will get RM12 million,” she said.
She said preparations for the 2027 SEA Games and ASEAN Para Games have also received a boost with RM120 million allocated next year.
