‘Aligning TVET and polytech syllabus is challenging’
KUCHING: One of the key challenges in the country’s education system is aligning the Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) and polytechnic syllabus to keep up with the rapid technological advancement.
Chief executive officer (CEO) of PolyCC Department of Polytechnic Education and Community College (JPPKK) Datuk Dr Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah said that it took years to get approval for a syllabus, and by the time this was done it would already be out-dated.
“The education system has to be upgraded and updated in order for students to be exposed to the latest state of the art technology,” he said at the closing of an orientation week at Kuching Polytechnic Sarawak (PKS), Jalan Matang, yesterday.
The PKS industry advisor said frontier technology was coming up on a large scale, which was good as it would have many beneficial applications.
For example, he said, the use of mixed reality such as holograms could be applied in education to virtually bring in lecturers from overseas, thus saving time and cost.
“Holograms can be used by politicians to be virtually present at many places at the same time,” said Mohd Abdul Karim, who is also SDHB group managing director and CEO.
On the other hand, he said, to a certain extent, frontier technology can have destructive effects such as making many workers redundant.
“However, we must accept that regardless of whether we accept technology or not, it will come and people will utilise it,” he said.
Mohd Abdul Karim emphasised the need to keep updated with technology as one’s thoughts and perceptions would be different with such awareness.
In his presentation entitled ‘TVET Challenge: How to Future-Proof Your Success’, he said that in 2022, there would be 75 million declining roles including data entry, bookkeeping and clerks.
“What will be in high demand are data analysts and data scientists,” he said.
He also explained the nine pillars of the 4th Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) including Internet of Things (IoT), cyber security, cloud computing, simulation, and so on.
“The ultimate goal of IR 4.0 is to improve efficiency and increase productivity,” he said.
Also present with him was PKS director Jamaliah Ahmad.
