Chinese youths prefer to be officers instead of constables

The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Chinese youth want to become police officers but not police constables.

This was the finding of the MCA police recruitment campaign, which saw encouraging response from Chinese youths wanting to join the force as police officers.

MCA Youth chief Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said there was lukewarm interest in filling up posts in the lower ranks.

The month-long campaign, jointly organised by MCA Youth and the Police Recruitment Department, attracted 250 Chinese youths. It ended on Monday.

“When we went around (during the campaign), 250 youths responded and applied to join the force as police officers. In fact, more than 80% applied for the posts of police inspector and above.

“However, there was lukewarm response for the post of police constable and other lower ranks.

“Therefore, we have to come out with better programmes to woo youths, particularly SPM leavers, to take up the post of police constable,” Liow, who is Youth and Sports Deputy Minister, said in an interview yesterday.

Liow said MCA Youth would come up with more awareness campaigns to inform them that they could advance in the force by joining as police constable even with an SPM qualification.

“We want to let them know that even as police constables, they can further their studies by pursuing degrees,” he said.

He said many Chinese youths were unaware that they could still join the force even with only four credits and a pass in Bahasa Malaysia in their SPM.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Datuk Fu Ah Kiow said that of the 90,000 policemen and policewomen in the country, only 2.38% were Chinese.

Between January and the end of October, he said police received 7,226 applications to join the force.

“Of these, only 46 (0.6%) were Chinese, while 80% were Malays. The rest (1.9%) were Indians.

Fu said the Government’s target was to raise it to 10%, but he agreed that it would be a great achievement if they could achieve 5% in the next few years. – Bernama