KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 — Universities should keep watch over student usage of the Internet and social media, an ex-minister said today, blaming rude online language for the decline in manners among Malaysian youths today.

Former information, communication and culture minister Tan Sri Rais Yatim said youth today receive most of their information from social media, and therefore it is the responsibility of universities to monitor the Internet.

“In the morning, the first thing that youth do is check their phones. That’s not a problem, but the content on social media is what we must question.

“We must be cautious through the Academy of Malay Studies about what values we want to leave behind in our education.

“Even other people have said that at this point, brash language originates from the Internet, uncultured language originates from the Internet,” he said today during the launching of the Academy of Malay Studies Festival at University Malaya.

He went on to say that good manners and etiquette should be institutionalised in tertiary Malay Studies education, which has been in short supply of late.

“Good manners (budi) is important, especially to Malays, and it is because of good manners that the Malay civilisation exists. Budi has since been drowned out and it is not formalised or inducted in our education. We must rediscover budi in Malay studies and we should teach it like budi pekerti and budi bahasa.

“It can be said that if budi isn’t a part of education, we will become a wild race, and we’ve already seen that in a few campuses and in the character of some youth as well as adults,” he said.

During his speech, Rais, currently the socio-culture adviser to the government, added that he would be kickstarting a campaign to reintroduce good manners in the syllabuses of several Malay Studies subjects, including Universiti Malaya, Universiti Islam Antarabangsa and Universiti Putra Malaysia.

This comes after Rais had last year proposed that a local Facebook alternative be created to control seditious remarks online.

This suggestion, however, was dismissed by Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek, who said the Internet should be monitored more stringently while investigation capabilities are improved.