The civil service hiring procedure for people with disabilities (OKUs) has been the subject of calls for an audit from several organizations representing the disabled community.
Since the policy has been in place since 1988, the groups questioned why the government has not pledged to create 1% of civil service employment for disabled people.
“After 35 years of policy implementation failure, the time has come for an audit of the government employment process of OKUs.
“This (audit) must examine, among others, pre-employment, including vacancy announcements and recruitment, as well workplace attitudinal orientation and other reasonable accommodation in the civil service,” they said in a statement today.
They claimed that although a team to evaluate workplace accessibility and reasonable accommodations was established as part of the National OKU Action Plan 2018–2022, this project has not yet been carried out.
The OKU Rights Matter Project, Autism Inclusiveness Direction Action Group, Boleh Space, and more than 20 additional individuals, including activists and medical experts, collectively released the statement.
Only 0.3% of the civil service, according to figures from the Public Service Department (JPA) cited by the organization, made up of OKUs as of September 2022. Only 0.1% to 0.2% is a dismal rate for several ministries.
According to data from the Public Services Commission, just 1,008, or 27% of the 3,777 civil service job applications made by OKUs in 2022 resulted in a call for an interview.
“This clearly shows the high level of rejection of persons with disabilities at the application phase, even before they have a chance to be interviewed,” the groups said.
Only 71 (1.9%) of the 3,777 candidates had jobs as of the employment rate.
The group added that people with speech, hearing, psychological, or learning problems had considerably lower employment rates than people with physical or visual impairments. This can imply disability-related discrimination.
“With 16% of the population having a disability, it is unwise to ignore this potential workforce,” their statement added.
According to human resources minister V Sivakumar, the country’s rules against job discrimination include people with impairments, who stated on Monday that additional legislation is unnecessary for this group.
The civil service hiring procedure for people with disabilities (OKUs) has been the subject of calls for an audit from several organizations representing the disabled community.