KUALA LUMPUR: Education experts have called on the government to create a new millennium policy or guideline for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to support the aim of the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP).

       Director of the Malaysian Vocational Education and Training Research Institute Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Assoc Prof Dr Razali Hassan, said the formulation of the policy should give emphasis to effective teaching and learning (P&P) methods so that TVET would not be seen as just an alternative education for school dropouts.

       He said technological changes which followed the fourth industrial revolution and the challenges faced by the country in facing Covid-19 had also changed the P&P landscape at 1,295 TVET institutions in Malaysia.

       “The P&P activities can only be implemented effectively by applying the various pedagogical approaches, including cybergogy, peeragogy and heutagogy.

       “However, in order to increase its effectiveness, the formulation of the new millennium policy must be undertaken by the government,” he said in response to the government’s plan to empower the education sector, including TVET, under the 12MP.

       Razali said the government also needed to upgrade TVET infrastructure so that it would become more hybrid-friendly.

       Training facilities based on the Teaching Factory Model must also be created in order to reduce unnecessary student mobility.

       Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob in tabling the 12MP, said the national education system should be able to produce high quality, skilled human capital to meet the needs of industries, including the strengthening of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education while empowering the TVET programme.

       Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Education and Community Wellbeing Research Centre lecturer Dr Anuar Ahmad said every TVET institution should be transformed by including the latest elements of technology, such as robotics, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) in its courses and programmes to achieve the improvement goals underlined in the 12MP.

       “TVET is an area that offers many job opportunities to students, but the P&P methods should not stay traditional. To meet the needs of industries, TVET must include the latest elements of technology, robotics and AI as these technologies will dominate the future,” he said.

       Director of Technical and Engineering Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Assoc Prof Dr Aede Hatib Musta’amal @ Jamal said that in order to ensure that all TVET institutions review their training content or curriculum, the government should also consider setting up a monitoring body.

       “The monitoring body should collect all information on all efforts so that less-effective or low-impact projects can be improved or stopped, thus reducing the loss ratio,” he said. — Bernama