BASED on the population estimates for 2022, there are 9.19 million children under the age of 18 – 4.75 million boys and 4.44 million girls, according to the Children Statistics, Malaysia, 2022, issued by the Department of Statistics Malaysia today.

Chief Statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the children made up 28.1% of Malaysia’s population of 32.65 million.

He said the composition of children under five years old in 2022 is 2.39 million, comprising 1.22 million boys and 1.17 million girls, which is 26% of the total number of children in Malaysia.

Putrajaya recorded the highest percentage of children under the age of 18 in 2022, at 41.6% of the total population of 0.12 million, followed by Kelantan (35.3%) and Terengganu (34%), he said, adding that the lowest is Penang, with 23.4%.

“Selangor recorded the highest number of children under the age of 18, at  1.81 million, followed by Johor (1.12 million) and Sabah (1.06 million), with the lowest number recorded in Labuan at 0.03 million,” he said in a statement today.

On immunisation programmes, Uzir said there were five immunisations given to infants, namely bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), poliomyelitis (Polio), diphtheria, tetanus & pertussis (DTP), haemophilus influenzae type B (HIB) and hepatitis B.

He said all immunisation coverage recorded a decline in 2021 except BCG, which remained at 98.8%.

The three immunisations namely Polio, DTP and HIB showed a decrease of 3.5% to 94.2% in 2021 as compared to 97.7% in 2020, he said, adding that for hepatitis B, it decreased by 8.2% to 93% in 2021 as compared to 101.2% in 2020.

According to Uzir, certain conditions originating in the perinatal period remained the principal cause of death for children below the age of five in 2021 at 37%.

This was followed by congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities (29.9%), pneumonia (2.1%),  Covid-19 infection (1.5%) and transport accidents (1.1%), he added.

Uzir said that findings in education showed that the enrolment transition rate for primary to lower secondary level showed an increase of 1.5% to 90.9% in 2021, compared to 89.4% in 2020.

The enrolment transition rate for lower secondary to upper secondary level also showed an increase of 1.4% to 99.3% over the same period, he added.

However, he said, the enrolment transition rate from upper secondary to post-secondary recorded a decrease of 0.7% in 2021 to 2.8%, compared to 3.5% in the previous year.

Uzir said that based on the perspective of child protection, the number of children in need of care and protection increased 4.9% to 6,144 persons in 2021, from 5,858 persons in 2020.

Girls outnumbered boys at 4,005 persons and 2,139 persons respectively, he said, adding that the cumulative number of registered persons with disabilities (pwd) in 2021 was 148,000.

– Bernama, November 28, 2022.