Obstacles to employability skills training programs in Malaysia from the perspectives of employers, educators and graduates perspective

Over the last two decades,employability skills training programs initiated by the Malaysian government and agencies are an essential strategy to improve the skill of the workforce and minimiz unemployment.However,stakeholders seem perplexed about the direction and attainment of the training programs. There are raising concerns whether employability skills training programs are designed and offered properly in improving workers’ skills and securing unemployed workers’ employment. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of educators, employers, and recent graduates regarding the contributing factors that impede the progress of employability skills training programs. The theoretical framework for this quantitative study was based on Human Capital Theory. A survey questionnaire contains qualitative component questions was developed to gather feedback from employers, educators, and graduates from the central economic region of the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. The findings of this study revealed the major obstacles to effective employability skills training programs in the workforce of Malaysia, such as unclear objectives and direction of training programs, negative attitudes of recent raduates,and inactive involvement of employers in local workforce education and training. These obstacles will be a key area to be assessed and improved in program evaluation

The role of employability skills training programs in the workforce of Malaysia

Employability skills training programs are an essential strategy to improve the skills of the workforce and minimize unemployment in Malaysia. However, there has been a lack of assessment and evaluation studies regarding local employability skills training programs. Existing local studies are focused more on the identification of the skills that allow a person to be employable. Due to the lack of assessment and evaluation studies, stakeholders seem perplexed about the direction of training programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of educators, employers, and recent graduates regarding the role of employability skills training programs in the workforce of Malaysia. The study also identified those factors that facilitate and improve training programs. The theoretical framework for this descriptive study was based on Human Capital Theory (Becker, 1993; Schultz, 1961). All participants for this study were from the central economic region of the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. The first population was engineering, technical, and vocational educators in public higher education institutions. The second population was employers in the manufacturing sector. The third population was recent graduates who were enrolled in employability skills training programs in higher education institutions and training centers. A questionnaire was adapted to gather perceptions from the respondents. The findings of this study revealed the importance of training programs for improving the skills, minimizing unemployment, and developing the workforce of Malaysia. Educators and recent graduates agreed about the positive impact of such programs on trainee skills. However, employers perceived that employability skills training programs neither ensure improvement in the skills, minimize unemployment, nor develop the workforce. The factors that facilitate the involvement of recent graduates in training programs and recommendations were also identified. Additionally, the findings revealed that employability skills training programs are relevant for recent graduates and workers in the labor force. Further, the findings identified the most integral skills that recent graduates should possess to obtain employment in the competitive job market as perceived by educators, employers, and recent graduates, including discipline and integrity, interpersonal skills, and professionalism, creativity and innovation, teamwork, lifelong learning, ability to apply knowledge, and knowledge in specific engineering disciplines

Career-Related Characteristics Towards Career Certainty of Vocational College Students

Career path certainty in this era of innovation, digitalization, and globalization is increasing and continues to be the decisive factor in career selection by many people in the fast-growing, unpredictable, and highly competitive job market. This situation has forced students to make career choices as the first step to ensure that the available human resources are in line with the demand in the labor market. This study aims to determine the role of career-related characteristics in the relationship to career certainty among Vocational College students in Selangor. The career-related characteristics included in this study are career planning, career exploration, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and career goals. This research is a quantitative and correlational study conducted on first-year Vocational College students in Selangor. Using simple random sampling, 230 students were selected as research respondents. The results showed that career planning, career exploration, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and career goals showed an insignificant but moderate positive relationship with career certainty. This study provides a basis for planning career-related learning and development programs at the pre-university level. The study recommends that teachers actively initiate student career exploration activities during learning

Factors Influencing TVET Teacher’s TPACK Competencies

Developing competent teachers is one of the main focuses of national TVET's transformation. The teaching profession demands that teachers constantly strive to improve the quality of their professionalism to become competent and quality teachers. In addition, TVET teachers must be prepared to withstand the technological boom in the industrial revolution 4.0 digital era to keep them in line with 21st-century learning. Thus, the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework is designed to meet the competencies that TVET teachers need. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the factors that influence the TPACK competency of TVET Teachers. Furthermore, to determine the relationship between mentoring role, school environment, and TVET teacher’s competencies. A total of 400 TVET teachers from two categories of TVET-related institutions under the Malaysian Education TVET division were selected as the study’s sample: vocational education upper secondary stream (PVMA) from National Secondary School (SS) and Vocational College (VC). Data were analyzed using a t-test, correlation, and multiple linear regression.  The findings revealed significant differences in the level of technological knowledge competency between the two school categories. The role of mentoring and the school environment is also significantly related to the TPACK competency of TVET teachers. Meanwhile, the school environment predicts a change in the TPACK teachers' competency for TVET teachers in Peninsular Malaysia. Therefore, the study discovers the role of the mentoring role and the school environment in determining new factors influencing TVET teachers’ TPACK competency. For further research, it is recommended to study the mentoring role in mediating the relationship between the school environment and TVET teachers’ TPACK competency

Role of career exploration in influencing career choice among pre-university student

In the age of innovation, digitalization, and globalization today, deciding to take a career path has been growing and challenging. The career path continues to increase its stature as a career choice, pursued by many in an evolving, unpredictable, and competitive marketplace. Students’ general career selection process is the first step to ensuring that human resources align with the labor market demands. This study aimed to determine the role of career exploration as a mediator in the relationship between social support and career self-efficacy on career choices among pre-university students. This research is a quantitative and correlational study conducted on students in the Agricultural Science of Foundation program at Universiti Putra Malaysia. By using simple random sampling, 249 students were selected based on Cohen’s calculation. The researchers used the Career Exploration Survey (CES), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale-Short (CDSE-SF), and career choice instrument surveys to measure the variables in this study. The results show that career exploration acts as a partial mediator in the relationship between social support and career self-efficacy on career choice. There is not only a significant relationship between the career exploration and the career choice, but also some direct relationship between the social support, career self-efficacy and career choice. This study provides a basis for reference to academicians and instructors designing the pre-university student curriculum in choosing a career. Teachers are also recommended to play an active role in initiating career exploration activities for students during their learning process

Demographic factors of corporate E-learning among E-learners in an oil and gas company

rganizations that use e-learning as a tool to educate their employees have either reaped the benefits or struggled with its implementation. The dominant reason for this is corporate e-learning overlaps the organizational, human, and technological aspects of learning. Previous research has compartmentalized the research by studying these three aspects separately, so there is little insight on how these variables affect corporate e-learning. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the levels and differences of organizational learning, e-learning quality, and e-learning use according to the demographic groups of corporate e-learners in a Malaysian oil and gas company. A quantitative survey method was applied to collect data from 261 participants using a 5-point Likert Scale questionnaire. The results revealed the level of overall organizational learning, e-learning quality, and e-learning use was moderate. Furthermore, organizational learning, e-learning quality, and e-learning use were significantly different for gender, department, and job position demographic groups. However, age and working experience did not show a significant difference for these variables. The findings from this study provide a bottom-up insight to stakeholders and managers when investing in and implementing e-learning at the organization

Teacher readiness in implementing the teaching of design and technology and Its relationship with self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation

An important component of an education change begins with readiness among the implementers. Willingness to face change needs to be measured from the perspective of the individual implementing the change, especially teachers. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify the relationship between teachers’ readiness in implementing the teaching of Design and Technology (RBT) year four of the Primary School Standard Curriculum (KSSR) with self -efficacy and intrinsic motivation. This study is guided by the Wallace Reflective Model. The quantitative study of this descriptive survey involved 368 teachers of RBT fourth year KSSR subjects in Peninsular Malaysia. Cluster and simple random sampling were used to select the sample for this study. The research instrument consisted of a set of questionnaires containing 77 items. The findings of the study showed that the overall mean of teachers' readiness in terms of reasoning knowledge and PBS skills was high. The readiness of teachers in terms of PBS skills recorded a higher mean value (M = 3.92) compared to reasoning knowledge (M = 3.82). These findings give the impression that teachers are more prepared in terms of PBS skills in implementing the teaching of RBT KSSR. The results of the Pearson Correlation Test showed that there was a moderately positive relationship between the independent variables (self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation) with teachers' readiness. The findings of this study prove that the component of teachers’ readiness is very important to be taken into account in the formulation of a new curriculum. Factors of self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation also need to be considered because these two variables have a significant relationship with the readiness of teachers in implementing teaching in the classroom. Therefore, this study is expected to provide guidance to policy makers and curriculum planners to pay attention to the aspect of teacher readiness when introducing new subjects

Honoring the teaching profession: the untold story of oppression and dissatisfaction of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) instructors

Currently, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is one of the most discussed educational fields. In fact, TVET has been included in the nation’s budget especially for the development of facility and policy making. Notably, TVET has recently underlined the significance of teachers’ preparation program with regards to the issue of teaching job dissatisfaction. Purposefully, a mixed-method design was employed by adopting a convergent parallel design where both qualitative and quantitative data were combined in a single instrument. Results from the narrative interpretation were derived from the open-ended qualitative questions. In particular, Qualtrics, an online-survey form was utilized to collect the research data. For this study, the target population comprised of Malaysian training instructors at TVET educational institutions. Next, a thematic analysis was employed using the Atlas.ti software to determine the TVET instructors’ dissatisfaction factors. Accordingly, six themes were highlighted: burdened with administrative tasks, forced to manipulate students’ achievement documentations, improper planning of TVET programme implementation, student factor, inconducive working environment, and unstable TVET system. Although it was hard to grasp the essence of the existing scenario, it is strongly believed that the findings will spark much interest from the educational stakeholders, especially at the TVET division level to modify the current policy and plan a comprehensive teachers’ preparation program. Primarily, the findings of this study are objectively constructive to motivate TVET instructors towards creating a positive image of teaching, besides discarding any negative conceptions or misaligned goals, especially in the TVET field

Job satisfaction and motivation to teach: predicting intrinsic and extrinsic factors towards retaining career-switchers in the teaching profession

The teaching career is undoubtedly one of the most challenging professions with regards to other related service-type occupations. Evidently, throughout the history of the teaching career, numerous cases related to mental and health problem, high dropout rate nationwide, and behavioral delinquency among teachers have been reported in this particular field. In general, career-switchers are individuals who transitioned from their previous occupation into the teaching service. Indeed, this specific group of individuals is interested into the teaching service due to the gap eventuated from the high attrition rate of teachers. Inevitably, the role of career-switchers, especially for former industrial-based practitioners, is significant in Career and Technical Education. In light of this matter, this research focused on determining teaching job satisfaction factors of career-switchers and predicting which job satisfaction factors are prominent to career-switchers’ retention plan. In this study, a descriptive and correlational analysis was utilized to ascertain the objective of the study: (a) to determine the teaching job satisfaction factors of career-switchers of career and technical education teachers and (b) to identify the job satisfaction factors that influence career-switchers’ retention plan. The sample of the study was derived from 2670 CareerTech registered teachers in the Midwestern state using purposive sampling technique. Then, the data was gathered using an online survey named Qualtrics, which filtered the number of career-switcher to 272. Additionally, a chi-square analysis was employed and the result indicated that the factors of marital status, the teaching position of career-switchers, and highest degree earned were found significance with retention plan. Also, the regression analysis revealed six job satisfaction factors which influenced career-switchers to remain in the teaching profession. Subsequently, these six factors were summarized into four major themes: salary, teaching supports, teaching preparation, and motivation. Based on the findings, it was implied that career-switchers take into consideration of both extrinsic and intrinsic variables when deciding whether to stay or leave the teaching profession. On the same note, future research related to comparative analysis of career-switchers within different demographic contexts is highly suggested

Enabling employment for people with disability (PWD): readiness, commitment, and disposition of Malaysian employers

People with disabilities (PWD) struggle with prejudices, narrow-mindedness, and maltreatment. This situation has brought many questions on how the public serves them. Concerning PWDs' employment, the source of income and the wellbeing of this community frequently be neglected and depreciated. The research issues a call to this agenda and suggests action to empower employment among PWD. Descriptive quantitative research was employed to 136 employers from various industries. This article reports three variables: readiness, commitment, and disposition of industrial players on hiring PWD. The results of the study describe that employers are more likely to hire PWD in their organization based on their readiness and commitment, however, the disposition was discouraging. The types of disabilities, industries and ethnicities of the PWD contribute to a major decision when hiring PWD. Employment of PWDs is afflicted by skeptical and dubious perspectives due to their capabilities and capacities to fulfill job responsibilities. With encouragement and empowerment of skilled development programs, PWD is supposed to be allowed to join the workforce, performing a job that suits their impairment. Ongoing support must be advocated among the grassroots of the nations that ultimately flourish the life of PWD