Malaysia economic grew at an average 6.2 percent per annum during the 1991-2005 period as in Ninth Malaysia Plan. Malaysia now at the mid-points in its journey towards 2020 and is just transforming to the second fifteen year phase.

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International TT-TVET EU-Asia-Link project Meeting, VEDC Malang
Technical & Vocational Education & Training (TVET) from Malaysia Perspective
by
Prof. Dr. Jailani Bin Md. Yunos,
Assoc.Prof.Dr.Wan Mohd Rashid Bin. Wan Ahmad,
Assoc.Prof.Dr. Noraini Binti Kaprawi,
Assoc.Prof.Dr.Wahid Bin Razally
Kolej Universiti Teknologi Tun Hussein Onn
(KUiTTHO), Malaysia.
Introduction
Malaysia economic grew at an average 6.2 percent per annum during the 1991-2005
period as in Ninth Malaysia Plan. Malaysia now at the mid-points in its journey towards 2020 and
is just transforming to the second fifteen year phase. Everything in the world now in the rapid
change of technological development and most of the work need to operate globally. For example
local businesses competing with multinationals and businesses need to think globally in order to
promote their product. Due to the changes, there have an impact in the nature of work where
highly using of the technology to compete on global arena and it redefines time and location of
work
Another aspect that will change because of the technology development is the working
environment with a global workforce and this will be related to the implications on human capital.
A more flexible workforce with advanced technical skills coupled with well developed generic
skills such as creative thinking, problem solving and analytical skills among others is highly
needed from the employer in the industry in order to meet the challenges faced by businesses.
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Global economic competition increase and give an impact to the economic growth and
emphasis to produce high quality products. Core economic success for 21st
century of economies
has drawn from high quality products and high quality values added all over the world. Similarly,
an improvement participation of national education in Malaysia also increases with significant
level at pre-school and tertiary-level. Furthermore, in order to improve the teaching skills and the
utilizations of ICT in schools, various measures have been taken to review the curriculum. It is
also being highlighted in Ninth Malaysia Plan that an opportunities and skill enhancement and
lifelong learning also expanded through the establishment the community colleges and open
universities.
During 1991-2005 in Ninth Malaysia Plan, a number of 597,384 skilled workers are
produced by training institution and 4.8 million places are provided by Pembangunan Sumber
Manusia Berhad to upgrading the workers skill and to meet the demand for skilled human
resources. Nowadays employers want to recruit multi-skilled (academic skills, teamwork skills,
and personal management skills) with leadership qualities and functional knowledgeable.
Besides, the workers should be creative and innovative and knowledgeable in using the ICT.
Thus in education, it is important for us to develop our labour force towards requirements and
needs in the industries. However the education institution and training institution need to have
working relationship with the industry in order to meet better needs of employers. Therefore with
this good relationship, the developing processes for the labour force align with the needs from the
employers.
Overview of Technical and Vocational Education and Training
Vocational education first appeared in the Malaysian education in 1897 when the British
initiated the training for Malay youths as mechanics and fitters to manage the railway lines in
Malaya (Federation of Malaysia, 1956; Zakaria, 1988). In 1906 the first public technical school
was opened to train technicians for government sectors (Lourdesamy, 1972). The comprehensive
education and training was introduced in 1965 and this gives an impact to the vocational
education scenario.
The development of education in Malaysia change due to the changes in economic,
social, number of population, technology and the needs of the education development itself. In
the table from Economic Planning Unit (2006) in Ninth Malaysia Plan, there are levels of
education regarding to the technical and vocational education and training in Malaysia. Education
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phase in Malaysia begin with the pre-school, primary school, secondary school, Post-secondary
(Certificates), university level for diploma, degree, masters and PhD (Refer Table 1). There has
an increase number expected for teacher education in year 2010 from 34,672 teachers to 45,899
teachers. We can also see that, the number of students expected in 2010 also rise for the upper
secondary level at Mara Junior Sciences Colleges and Government and Government aided
Schools (Technical and Vocational) from 12,145 students to 21,470 students and 72,827 students
to 85,227 students.
Table 1: Student Enrolement In Public Education Institutions, 2000-2010
Source: Ministry of Education (EPU, 2006), Ninth Malaysia Plan
Technical Education Schools in Malaysia is a post-PMR course for 2 years at the
Technical Secondary schools. It is aiming to sit for the SPM examination at the end of course.
Among the courses offered are Mechanical Engineering Studies, Civil Engineering Studies,
Electrical Engineering Studies, Agriculture and Commerce.
Vocational Education Schools is the school where the student is studying vocation skill. It
is a post-PMR course for 2 years at Technical Secondary Schools. It is also aiming to sit for the
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SPM examination at the end of course. Vocational Education Schools has 5 fields to be offered,
and among the courses offered are (Table 2):
Table 2: Courses Offered at the Vocational Education Schools
Field of
Engineering
Craftsmanship
Field of Home
Economics
Field of
Commerce
Field of
Agriculture
Farm Machinery
• Electricity
• Electronics
• Machine
Workshop
Practices
• Metal
Welding and
Fabrication
• Automation
• Construction
of Buildings
• Air-
Conditioning
• Catering and
Preparation of
Food
• Fashion
Designing and
Clothes-
making
• Cosmetics
• Child-care
• Bakery and
Confectionery
• Business
Management
• Decorative
Horticulture
• Farm
Management
The formation of Polytechnic Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) was aimed at
providing skilled semi-professionals in engineering, commercial and hospitality at Diploma and
Certificate levels to meet the nation’s demand both in the public and private sectors. To date
there are 20 Polytechnics MoHE operating nationwide.
Intake into Polytechnic MoHE is twice yearly. At each intake, Polytechnic MoHE offers
20,000 places of study for SPM/SPM(V)/MCE holders, Polytechnic and Community College
MoHE certificate.
Polytechnic MoHE offers 24 Certificate courses and 40 Diploma courses in various
disciplines. It also offers courses for the special needs. To date, there are 59,000 students
currently studying in Polytechnics MoHE nationwide. As stated in Table 3 is the duration of the
programme offered in the Polytechnic MoHE. At the certificate level, the duration taken for the
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programme is four semesters, while the diploma programme is six semesters. Instead of that, for
the Diploma in Secretarial Science the duration taken is four semesters and Diploma in Shipping
Engineering is seven semesters. For the duration for post certificate in Polytechnic is two
semesters while the post certificate in Community College is three semesters including one-
semester for Bridging Programme.
Table 3 : Duration of Programme Offered in the Polytechnic MoHE.
Source: Ministry of Education (EPU, 2006), Ninth Malaysia Plan
Bil Programme Duration
1 Certificate. Four Semesters.
6 Diploma. Six Semesters.
2 Diploma in Secretarial Science. Four Semesters.
3 Diploma in Shipping Engineering Seven Semesters.
4 Post Certificate (Polytechnic) Two Semesters
5 Post Certificate (Community College)
Three Semesters (including a One-Semester Bridging
Programme).
Malaysia has public education sector and private education sector. According to
Economic Planning Unit in Ninth Malaysia Plan 2006, the number of public education increases to
the large number from 22 institutions in year 2000 to 71 institutions in year 2005. The institution
includes universities, university colleges, polytechnics and community colleges (Refer Table 4).
Table 4: Tertiary Education Institutions, 2000 & 2005
Source: Ministry of Higher Education (EPU, 2006), Ninth Malaysia Plan
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According to Table 5, the number of students participating in the certificate level, diploma
level, degree level, master level and PhD level also increase from year to year according to
needs of education itself and people now more focus to the technical and vocational education
scenario of study. It is expected that, by 2006 until 2010, the percentage of enrolment at Master
Degree level will be increase from 7.5 % up to 26.5 % in Public Tertiary Education Levels. In
addition of that, at the PhD level, the enrolment percentage also is expected to be up to 26%.
Table 5: Enrolment In Tertiary Education Institutions By Levels Of Study, 2000-2010
Source: Ministry of Higher Education (EPU, 2006), Ninth Malaysia Plan
In Malaysia, the quality of the nation’s human capital will be the most critical element in
the achievement of the National Mission. It is believe that, the human capital development will be
a key thrust in the Ninth Plan period in Malaysia. Due to that, the best way in developing the key
thrust is by the expenditure allocation for education and training. By referring Table 6, the tertiary
education is having up to RM 16069 Million expenditure allocation. For teacher education itself it
has RM 577.7 Million allocation. The technical and vocational government schools were allocated
about RM 629.2 Million for their development expenditure. This expenditure allocation figure
shows that a huge development will be carried out in the ninth plan period to produce better
quality of the nation’s human capital.
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Table 6: Development Expenditure Allocation For Education And Training, 2001-2010
(RM Million)
Source: Ministry of Higher Education (EPU, 2006), Ninth Malaysia Plan
Employment Circumstances in Malaysia
The graduates employment becomes more competitive nowadays. It has been an issue
now where the current graduates now do not match the needs of the industries. Kamal Khir
(2006) said that Graduates now are lacking in both technical know-how and generic skills.
Competence is the fusion of both domain specific knowledge and generic skills, so efforts to
increase graduates’ competence must cover both areas. The competence needs to be learnt in
the environment and context that they are to be used and to demonstrate application of the
knowledge or skill. There are a number of competencies and they are usually defined by the
clusters and not in isolation. The field of training and development has undergone changes that
reflect the dynamics factors in the world economy. In training and development perspective, there
are an increasing scope of training and development to stay competitive in today’s global
economy (Zane Berge et al, 2002). As Malaysia is aiming to be a developed economy country,
the needs on certain competency may vary in term of the usefulness for the teacher, trainer or
coach.
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The life or sustainability of a particular competency, may differ as the work requirement
changes. Continual research into these competencies is therefore an important issue in the
training of TVET teachers and instructors. Foresighting and refining the competencies cluster
required enable us to identify the criticality of each competency.
A list of competencies in Table 7 was gathered from literature reviews. Broad clusters of
skills, knowledge, and attitudes were grouped together.
Table 7: Critical Competency Groups Suggested for Graduates
Main Competency
Groups
Skills
Subject Matter
Ability to have technical subject matter understanding
Ability on content analysis
Ability to have technical skills and knowledge
Ability to understands the knowledge and skills requirements of
jobs,tasks, roles
Practicum
Industrial experience
Teaching experience
Competent in his own specialisation
Research Skills
Ability to have research culture
Ability to understands the research concepts and theories
Ability to research to find the necessary sources/ information.
Ability to critically evaluate information sources for reliability
Ability to critically reading of literature
Ability to applies fundamental research skills to instructional design
project
Ability to have problem solving through research
Ability to do research proposal
Ability to do project development
Ability to manage research
Having the knowledge of the principles of qualitative research including
in-depth interviews, focus groups and content analysis
Ability to interpret the results from qualitative research including in-depth
interviews, focus groups and and content analysis
Ability to interpret statistical results to reach logical conclusions
Ability to interpret qualitative information to reach logical conclusions
Generic Skills
Ability to understand cross culture
Ability to communicate effectively in visual, oral and visual form
Facilitates implementation of team-based processes
Ability to create networking
Ability to identify and resolve ethical and legal implication of design in
the worplace.
Having the knowledge of Interpersonal relationship skills
Ability to handle conflict
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Ability to develops and sustains social competences
Ability to provides leadership intradepartmentally and
interdepartmentally.
Having the knowledge of negotiation skills.
Ability to demonstrates effective writing skills and techniques.
Ability to exercise judgment and critical thinking about data and result.
Ability to be innovative.
Ability to think critically when making decisions and solving problems.
Having the knowledge of the management skills
Ability to demonstrates effective questioning skills and techniques.
Knowledge of entepreunership skills
Organisational
Management
Having the knowledge of human resources development theories and
practices
Ability to have commitment to HRD principles and practices
Having the knowledge on industrial psychology
Ability to demonstrates effective presentation and platform skills
Ability to manages the learning environment
Having the knowledge of professionalisme
Having the knowledge of trust and integrity
Having the knowledge of ethical
Having the knowledge of the concepts of objectivity in an organisation
Having the knowledge of the concepts of philosophy in an organisation
Ability to determine development needs of employee population
Ability to develop curiculum to meet organisation need
Ability to manage information
Ability to manage workshop / laboratory
Knowledge on quality in an organisation
Instruction
Having the knowledge of learning theories and practices
Ability to delivers the training programs
Ability to designs and implements training for specific learners
Ability to designs, develops and produces instructional materials
Ability to select and uses a variety of techniques for determining and
sequencing instructional content and strategies
Ability to utilizes performance based tools(just-in-time training,
organizational development tools, expert systems)
Ability to conducts skills inventories
Ability to understands how to improve performance in situations where
training and instruction are inappropriate
Ability to performs job, task and/or content analysis
Ability to analyzes learning situations using appropriate needs
assesment, task, learner and environmental analyses
Ability to facilitates the diagnosis of problems
Ability to have effetive use of interactive media skills to deliver instruction
and engage learners
Ability to selects and utilizes appropriate technologies for instruction
delivery
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As noted by Kamal Khair (2006), that lack of these competencies lead to a new issue for
the graduates becoming unemployed. Table 8 shows that in 2005, there are about 3.5 %
graduates are on unemployment. It can also be seen that, in 2005, 28.7 % of the labour force is in
the manufacturing sector. This followed by Wholesale and Retail Trade, Hotels and Restaurants
17.7 % and Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock & Fishing 12.7%. As we can see, all these sectors are
the sectors that are related to the technical and vocational education. These demanding situation
has a contribution to a need where a better labour force should be produced by the technical and
vocational education and training system in Malaysia. In Table 9, the demand in 2010 for
Technicians and Associate Professional occupational group is 13.2 % which include non-
graduate teachers, supervisors and engineering and computer support technicians. While the
demand for the Professionals occupational group is 6.5%. Related to this, the demand for Plant
and Machine Operators and Assemblers in 2010 is 13.6%.
Table 8: Employment by Sector, 2000-2010 (‘000 Persons)
Source: Economic Planning Unit 2006, Ninth Malaysia Plan
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Table 9 : Employment by Major Occupational Group, 2000-2010 (‘000 Persons)
Needs in Technical and Vocational Education and Training System in Malaysia
As a middle income country, Malaysia economy is an investment-economic growth. It will
concentrate on the manufacturing and the outsourcers service export. It will have production of
high value-added goods and services. The technology driven in Malaysia is imported
technologies. The competition based mainly on efficiency in producing standard products. High
quality is technology advanced, and the flexible production becomes more important, but the
technology and design is largely still imported.
The challenges in this investment-economic growth are to attract foreign direct
investment and to link the national economy with the international production systems and the
global economy. Due to these challenges, a universal secondary education, deepening on
vocational and technical education, particularly at post secondary technician levels should be
arranged. It is also needed to up-skill the labour force through life-long learning to retool and
update skills. The broaden skills require is also including teamwork, communications and
problem-solving (Schwab et al., 2002).
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Mustapha et al. (2001) indicated that Malaysia was short of skilled workers to meet the
demands of economic growth. In the industrial sectors, the ratio is one engineer to three
technicians to 20 operators (1:3:20) (Asian Development Bank Report, 1999). However, with the
recent development in new technologies and the need for workers with intensive knowledge and
high skills, the demand for the workforce structure has changed. The ratio is one engineer to five
technicians to twelve operators (1:5:12). According to Asian Development Bank (2004),
developing countries are not ready to move towards becoming a knowledge-based economy if
the numbers of low skilled workers are large. Economic growth at this stage witnesses an
acceleration of demand for skills particularly at the higher levels, technicians and above and a
corresponding decline in demand for unskilled or low-skilled production workers and craftsman
(Figure 1).
Figure 1: Economic Labour Force for Industrializing Economy.
Source: Asian Development Bank (2004).Improving Technical Education and Vocational Training Strategies
for Asia
This transformation is also been supported by Wan Seman (2005) that indicated the
number of semiskilled, skilled and highly skilled or multiskilled worker should be increased (Figure
2). The transitional phase towards Vision 2020 is the phase to transform the developing
economy of Malaysia becoming developed economy with high-quality skilled workers to support
the industrializing economy. This conclude a high demand for TVET system in Malaysia.
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27 July 2006 Huma n Resources Policy Division, MHR
Ma laysia
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M alaysian W orkforce Transform ation
Technologist
(23% )
Highly Skilled/
M ulti-skilled
Skilled
Semiskilled
(23%)
Unskilled
WorkerstoProfessionals
V ISIO N 2020
D eveloping
Econom y
D eveloped Econom y
(60% + Skilled W orkers)
20201975
Source: Mr. Reinhardt Sachs, Germ an Consultant for Career &
Technical Education
Transitional Phase
Skill Vacuum
-
Figure 2: Malaysian Workforce Transformation
Source: Wan Seman Wan Ahmad (2005). The New Sectors of Economic Growth: The Contributing Role of
Technical and Vocational Education. Paper presented at National Technical & Vocational Education
Conference, 11-12 January 2005, Crown Princess Hotel, K.L.
References:
Economic Planning Unit (2006), Ninth Malaysia Plan.
Asian Development Bank (2004).Improving Technical Education and Vocational Training
Strategies for Asia , http://www.adb.org/Publications.
Md Jaffar Abdul Carrim (2006), ‘Training employable graduates: innovation in training
methodology’. Paper presented at National Conference on Continuing Technical
Education & Training 2006, Challenges in Technical Education and Training: Enhancing
Employability among Graduates 28-29 July 2006, The Katerina Hotel, Batu Pahat Johor
Kamal Khir (2006), Training Approach for the Employability of Graduates: Critical Graduate
Competencies in the Changing World, Paper presented at National Conference on
Continuing Technical Education & Training 2006, Challenges in Technical Education and
Training: Enhancing Employability among Graduates 28-29 July 2006, The Katerina
Hotel, Batu Pahat Johor
Kandan Saikon (2006), “Marketable Curriculum in Technical Training”, Paper presented at
National Conference on Continuing Technical Education & Training 2006, Challenges in
Technical Education and Training: Enhancing Employability among Graduates 28-29 July
2006, The Katerina Hotel, Batu Pahat Johor
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Schwab, Klaus, Michael Porter and Jeffrey Sachs, eds. 2002. The Global Competitiveness
Report, 2001-2002. Geneva: The World Economic Forum
Zakaria Kasa and Ab. Rahim Bakar (2006), Vocational and Technical Education and Career
Development: Malaysian Perspectives.
Zakaria, A. (1988). Perceptions of industrial training and employability skills: A comparative study
of the vocational schools and the MARA vocational institutes students in Malaysia.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
http://www.moe.gov.my/tayang.php?laman=sek_teknik&bhs=en
http://www.moe.gov.my/tayang.php?laman=sek_vokasional&bhs=en
http://www.politeknik.edu.my/webjan06/02_english/
http://www.unikl.edu.my/unikl/eng/ctl_overview.php
www.emoe.gov.my
www.emohr.gov.my
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