MALAYSIA FEBRUARY 19, 2018 corporate 53 SPECIAL REPORT MISSING SKILLS: Is higher education on the mark? Malaysia’s growth story is coming under pressure from many sides, including a shortage of skilled workers in critical occupations, high dependency on cheap labour, which discourages investment in innovation, a higher education system hungry for resources and low collaboration between industry and academia. Can the stakeholders come together to solve this complex problem? Rash Behari Bhattacharjee and Syahirah Syed Jaafar examine the issue. PICTURES BY THE EDGE TABLE 1 CRITICAL OCCUPATIONS LIST REPORT 2016/17 he list of human cap- ital obstacles that the Negative impact of not fi lling in critical occupations nation is facing is cer- tainly formidable. Take SECTORS INCREASED WORK DIFFICULTY IN INCREASED DIFFICULTY the skills mismatch that FOR EXISTING GIVING QUALITY COSTS IN MEETING EMPLOYEES PRODUCTS/ (%) CUSTOMER Thangs over graduate job (%) SERVICES (%) NEEDS (%) seekers like an unwel- Aerospace 30 61 39 57 come cloud. The shortage of skilled workers Business 78 33 11 33 is not only seen in the persistent services problem of youth unemployment but it is also cited by businesses as a Education 67 25 50 42 key factor constraining investment. E&E 71 42 35 35 This raises a host of questions. Financial 72 38 21 34 Can Malaysia’s higher educa- Shamsuddin: Companies turn to Idris: MOHE is mindful that higher services tion system close the gap between countries like India because we education and market demands are jobs and candidates’ skills that is don’t have the people. I think that is constantly evolving Medical devices 48 12 16 4 making vacancies in critical occu- very telling. ICT 33 40 13 20 pations increasingly hard to fi ll? The answer to that question is Oil, gas & 59 9 34 9 keenly awaited by the stakehold- “Unfortunately, a lot of IT grad- around artifi cial intelligence and energy (incl ers — including students, higher uates are not suitable for this work data and a relentless demand for petrochemicals) learning institutions and busi- because they have not been trained specifi c soft skills such as adapt- nesses — whose fortunes depend for it. ability, creativity and collaboration”. Telecoms and 61 22 30 22 on the outcome. “As a result, companies turn One constraint is that employ- multimedia Employers in 10 key economic to countries like India because ers today want market-ready can- sectors surveyed by the govern- we don’t have the people. I think didates to fi ll their vacancies rather ment’s Critical Skills Monitoring that is very telling. The industry than investing in training recruits, Committee report four main eff ects has moved ahead but the system says Shamsuddin. required,” Higher Education Min- • Insufficient technical skills; of staff shortage. is not able to fi t the industry with “Companies are not patient ister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh says in and The committee’s Critical Occu- the right people.” enough to train our people any- an email reply to The Edge. • Insuffi cient soft skills such as pations List (COL) Report 2016/17, The COL report verifi es this. It more. They say it is not their role. “This means that MOHE too creativity and communication. a bellwether study by Talent Corp states that big data analytics was In the early 1980s or late 1970s, needs to evolve to ensure that ed- (See Table 3 on Page 56.) Malaysia Bhd and the Institute of one of the top skills in demand in employers were prepared to train ucational off erings of Malaysian Many questions arise from this Labour Market Information and Malaysia in 2016, citing studies people, even up to one year. But higher education institutions (HEIs) conundrum: Why is there an un- Analysis, identifies these effects by recruitment consultancy Hays now, they would rather have people are in line with the needs of indus- bridgeable gap between the remu- as increased workload on current and career networking platform who can contribute straight away try, while also keeping in mind the neration off ered and job seekers’ employees, diffi culties in providing LinkedIn, in addition to the COL to the organisation,” he says (see role of education to promote good expectations? What lies behind quality goods and services, increased survey fi ndings. Table 2 on Page 56). values and appreciation for the arts, the multiple skills defi cits — stu- costs and diffi culties in meeting Worse, the crunch is not about Recognising the huge challeng- history and social sciences.” dent quality, deficient training, customer needs (see Table 1). to be resolved soon. Employers in es in skills development, the Min- policy issues, or all of the above? Malaysian Employers Feder- the COL survey frequently respond- istry of Higher Education (MOHE) High expectations, Are industry and academia work- ation executive director Datuk ed that they found it harder to fi ll is engaged in a national transfor- insuffi cient skills ing together enough on solutions? Shamsuddin Bardan gives an ex- these vacancies compared with the mation initiative to deal with this As for why businesses found it dif- ample of where the problem lies. previous year, or they expected the issue in all its complexity. fi cult to recruit the right people, Dependence on cheap labour “With the current trend towards trend to continue. “MOHE is mindful that higher the top four factors were: The Bank Negara Malaysia 2016 digitalisation, companies need data Interestingly, the latest Hays education as well as market de- • High expectations of salaries/ Annual Report shines the spotlight analysts to mine big data for busi- forecast on Jobs and Skills Trends for mands are constantly evolving, with benefi ts; on the dilemma. ness growth,” he tells The Edge. 2018 sees “an explosion in new roles new skills, knowledge and expertise • Insuffi cient work experience; CONTINUES ON PAGE 56 54 corporate MALAYSIA FEBRUARY 19, 2018 SPECIAL REPORT Seismic change imminent in learning he Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (High- er Education) clearly rec- Tognises that a “fundamen- tal transformation of how the higher education system and higher learning institutions cur- rently operate” is required for Ma- laysian youth to thrive in a com- plex and ever-changing future. Noting the constraints dis- cussed in the main essay, a num- ber of opinion leaders who The Edge interviewed pointed to the need for a shake-up of the education Shareen: TalentCorp is working with Chua: Good industrial training Ong: We must remember that Sohail: Teaching training should system at various levels. MOHE to review and improve the programmes must be developed to industry often has diff erent be adapted to prepare for a world The top proposals, briefl y, are: course content of universities bridge the skills gap that is making it objectives from academia when it after jobs • Give education boards and in- diffi cult to run businesses comes to research stitutions autonomy; • Make curriculum reviews dy- AFP namic; neurship studies,” he says. “We must remember that in- • Introduce transformative in- While the various reform pro- dustry often has different ob- dustry-academia collaboration; posals address the current prob- jectives from academia when it and lem of academic relevance and comes to research. Industry wants • Make market testing of aca- skills shortage, there is a whole to keep innovative research in- demic research the norm. clutch of parallel issues to be ad- house and for competitive advan- Bukit Bendera MP Zairil Khir dressed because of the changing tage but academia wants to pub- Johari, who is the DAP parliamen- nature of work in this age. lish this to make its work known tary spokesperson for education, One is the rise of independent to others. This is why clearly de- science and technology, thinks work and another, the shortening fined output is necessary from that decentralisation is key to an cycle of obsolescence and renew- the start.” eff ective education system. al. As a result, workers must get Drawing from a renaissance “The root of the problem is used to the idea of lifelong and initiative involving several ed- structural and this needs to be life-wide learning. ucational systems, futurist Prof fi xed. The practical way is to give In describing the challenge, Sohail Inayatullah states that ed- autonomy to educational institu- Khazanah Research Institute di- ucation needs to innovate for to- tions. People today want choice. rector of research Allen Ng says, morrow’s jobs. Then they are happier. So let them “Due to the increasing trend to- “We know that there are six decide. Remove politics from the wards independent work, upskill- or seven areas in which tomor- governance of academic aff airs,” ing programmes must change row’s industries will grow,” he he says. from being employer-driven to tells The Edge. An obvious starting point for employee-centric.” These trends include life ex- reforms is to axe courses that no While all these measures tension and ageing, innovations longer serve industry needs. show there is much work to be in genomics, fresh approaches to Universiti Malaya, for one, is done to align higher education city design and new types of food, already overhauling its stable of At a career fair ... TalentCorp is collaborating with key industry players to address institutions (HEIs) with indus- among other things. They operate off erings. the skills mismatch between new graduates and employer expectations try’s evolving needs, some pro- in peer-to-peer environments and “All undergraduate curricula gress is being achieved through are disruptive. have been reviewed in the last few MOHE’s eff orts. In this milieu, high school years with input from industry,” “To align the skills imparted in community should be part of the Early this year, the ministry teaching will not be by subject deputy vice-chancellor (academ- universities with those required university.