The Technical Education and Vocational Training (TVET) issue has raised eyebrows again when Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi recently suggested that graduates in the field be paid a salary verthan RM4,000.
TVET is an education and training process that has a job orientation with a major emphasis on industry practice. It aims to produce a competent workforce in certain fields.
The purpose of TVET was introduced to meet industry demand and contribute to economic growth, in line with globalisation, knowledge-based economy, technological advancement and global workforce mobility.
According to Zahid, the move to set the salary benchmark is one of the efforts to strengthen the TVET sector in Malaysia which is the second choice for young people to continue their higher education.
Stigmatised
This is because, the TVET industry is often associated with students who drop out in the academic field or do not have excellent academy qualifications.
However, in today’s economic climate, many are confident that TVET will be popular with students again. In addition, the government together with the parties involved are actively giving exposure about TVET. Certainly, the salary ‘offer’ of more than RM4,000 will be a major attraction.
In fact, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin when he became the Minister of Higher Education (KPT) last year revealed that a total of 29,000 graduates had not found a job after six months of completing their studies in 2022.
He said that the amount was based on official data from the graduate tracking system issued by the ministry.
He added the number of graduates who have not found a job after six months of graduating in 2021 is 41,467 people or 14.5 percent. In addition, the spread of Covid-19 in 2020 has triggered a surge in the online service sector in Malaysia with an increase in the number of e-hailing and p-hailing gig workers.
The latest statistics of 2023 show that many SPM graduates choose to engage in e-hailing and p-hailing on a part-time or full-time basis instead of corporate jobs. This field attracts young people because it gives workers the freedom to work without the employer having to teach them full time who are paid a reward after completing the task.
However, this field is not without its own problems. Among them, p-hailing riders complained about having to deal with low wages. The situation forced them to make a claim to the company to return the courier’s wages to the original, compared to now only RM1 to RM3.50.
Looking at the two situations above, the offer of a salary of more than RM4,000 is attractive to create interest of parents to send their children to study TVET, but what about those university graduates, who now have to be satisfied with a lower pay structure, do many think it may be waste of time and resources?
In reality, There are now more than 500 public TVET institutions that offer a variety of TVET programs for all levels of education. Two public TVET institutions were established in 1964 to provide skills training to youth, namely the Dusun Tua Youth and National Skills Institute (IKBN) and the Kuala Lumpur Industrial Training Institute (ILP).
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim recently stated that 100,000 TVET trainees will be born. According to him, the effort is contributed through the participation of government-related companies (GLCs) and government-related investment companies (GLCs) as well as private companies in improving the capacity and quality of national TVET involving government-related companies.
“With a salary target higher than what is earned now which is as much as RM3,000. Currently those who are actively involved are Petronas, Sime Darby, MRCB, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia. We consider this a small beginning that should be expanded. Children from the Felda family should be given opportunities and justice and should not be left out and marginalised,” he said.
Therefore, parents or those who are interested in entering this field, do not worry because TVET program graduates are able to master knowledge and practical skills better than academic program graduates. This advantage has the potential to open up more job opportunities and attract employers to offer jobs to TVET graduates.
