With the achievement of full internal self-government in 1959, the Government created the new Ministry of Culture.
The Ministry was to channel popular thinking and feeling along national lines and to re-organise the Information Services and the administration of mass media for the dissemination of information. It was required "to develop and nurture a common Malayan culture, to create a sense of national identity, to win the minds of people for the Democratic ideal and to keep the people informed of the broad aims and objectives of the Government."
The Ministry was also generally concerned with cultural developments. It was the licensing authority for public exhibitions of films, printing presses, publications and newspapers.
The Ministry of Culture was dissolved in 1985. When the Ministry of Community Development (MCD) was established on 2 Jan 1985, it took over most of the functions of the former Ministry of Culture. The Information Division of the Ministry of Culture came under the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI)also on 2 Jan 1985.
The Information Division of the MCI and the Culture Affairs Division of MCD, with other associated departments and statutory boards, returned to form the Ministry of Information and the Arts (MITA)on 28 November 1990.
On 23 November 2001, the Infocomm Technology (ICT) function (under then Ministry of Communications and Information Technology) came under MITA. The expanded Ministry was renamed Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, but retained the acronym MITA.
The Ministry 's acronym is changed from MITA to MICA in 2004.
The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) was renamed Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) on 1 November 2012.
A new ministry - the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth was established on 1 November 2012 to focus on building a cohesive and vibrant society, and deepening the sense of identity and belonging to the nation. MCCY also assumed MICA's arts, heritage and national resilience functions.
