Concerned generally with the preparation of youth for adulthood, this symposium presentation provides a paper that discusses the need for consumer education for Malaysian youth, and also two abstracts: the first reports findings of a study of adolescents' buying practices in Malaysia, and the second is a survey of university students' attitudes toward preparing adolescents for the responsibilities of adulthood. The discussion of the need for consumer education by Evelyn Hong explores (1) problems of the education system and of youth; major issues of consumer education, including problems of consumer culture and the young, problems of development needs, problems of basic needs, the environmental crisis in Malaysia; and (2) consumer education activities related to the subject areas of the school curriculum and extracurricular activities. Also discussed are annual exhibitions by the Consumers' Association of Penang (CAP), CAP workshops for student representatives from consumer clubs, research paper competitions and surveys. Concluding remarks provide a list of difficulties faced in implementing consumer education in developing countries. The first abstract describes work done by Jariah Hj Masud and Rohani Abdullah. Participating in their study of the spending patterns and buying and saving practices of Malaysian adolescents were 4,287 Form IV pupils from 32 schools in eight Malaysian states. The second abstract describes work by Hulman Sinaga. This study of Malaysian university students' attitudes regarding the preparation of adolescents for the responsibilities of adulthood concludes tentatively that Malaysian youth are not very well prepared for their future. Full papers of the abstracted studies are available through the editors of this conference. (RH)