Japan and Malaysia seal deal to boost technical & vocational education

A memorandum of cooperation was signed yesterday between representatives of Malaysia and Japan. The partnership aims to boost higher education including technical and vocational fields in both countries.

At the signing ceremony, Malaysia was represented by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the Education Minister, while Japan was represented by its Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Technology, Hakubun Shimomura.

The new memorandum augments an existing agreement and now includes a framework for basic education, from pre-school to pre-university level. Moreover, Malaysia hopes to learn from Japan’s rich experience in the fields of science and technology.

“It provides for a rather wide area for us to look into and for Malaysia to emulate in order to enhance the quality of education in our country,” says Muhyiddin. “There are many other areas, apart from higher education, such as research and development in raising the ranking of (our) universities. There are specific areas, niche areas, their field of specialization is far ahead compared to Malaysia and other more developed nations.”

Base on previous reports, number of students enrolled in vocational secondary schools has fallen from 62,200 in 2008 to 51,500 in 2011.

In 2008, the Ministry of Human Resources reported a labour shortage of over 700,000 skilled workers in the manufacturing, agriculture and construction industries. It is predicted that demands for vocational skills will continue to rise. This is due to the expected 3.3 million jobs that will be created under the National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) by 2020 where 46% of these jobs will require vocational certificates or diplomas.