KOTA KINABALU, May 30 — Sabah must put more focus on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programmes that can produce more competitive workers for today’s as well as future markets, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
He said that companies and those running TVET programmes needed to be flexible and industry-driven to better meet market requirements instead of using bureaucracy and outdated technical rules as excuses.
“It might not be a formal certificate by the ministry, it may be a certificate by the company which can be as good or at times better than some of our departments. Let them handle the training, let them make sure that the training meets the standards and more so the requirements of that particular industry.
“If they want 200 people from a particular event or university to work in the company or in the industry, let them train them so that there will not be a mismatch between what is being trained and what is required by the industry,” he said.
He was speaking at the launching of the first phase of the Esteel Entreprise project in Sabah at the Sabah International Convention Centre, here, today.
The finance minister said it was important to bridge the gap between what the central agencies were teaching and what the industry needed.
Anwar said that the traditional model, where training institutions operate independently of industry input, risks producing graduates whose skills do not align with real-world needs.
He said that past successful collaborations in Kuala Lumpur’s High Tech area, the Johor-Singapore Economic Zone, and Melaka as examples where industry and academia jointly shape training to meet market needs.
He said such models should be introduced in Sabah, particularly in light of upcoming large-scale investments.
“Don't give some bureaucratic, technical rules. You think about the future of your students and they will be better served if the industry trains these people for their requirements. If they need to be sent to either Kuala Lumpur or China, then come back as qualified engineers or technicians,” he said.
