“Elephant in the room” denotes major issues that are known to the public but poorly understood and often treated as non-existent because people are not comfortable to address them or could not offer solutions.
To me, the biggest elephant in the room are drivers, especially those handling large lorries and big buses.
Drivers are the main cause of road accidents, more than all other factors combined that include conditions of vehicle, road, weather and stray animals.
Many lorries and buses are driven by incompetent drivers, but transport operators had to employ them as the industry has been plagued by an acute shortage of good drivers for a long time.
Many small lorries are driven illegally by foreign workers. Although foreigners may be granted a competent driving licence (CDL), they are barred from applying for a goods driving licence (GDL) to handle cargo vans or lorries, or public service vehicle (PSV) licence to drive taxis or buses.
This is unlike Singapore, where a third of the bus drivers there are Malaysians and another third China nationals. While it is good to reserve jobs for Malaysians, the authorities have not done enough to increase the pool of competent commercial vehicle drivers.
If they had bothered to conduct a survey, they would have found the biggest and most common problem in the road transport industry is the shortage of good drivers that could handle professionally expensive vehicles, precious cargoes and priceless passengers.
Since 2014, I had made repeated calls to the Road Transport Department (RTD) and later the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) to spearhead or set up a corporatised Professional Drivers Academy.
In 2016, the MyLesen GDL scheme was introduced by the RTD and Association of Malaysian Hauliers (AMH) in collaboration with 10 selected driving institutes in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor for interested candidates to obtain licences to drive articulated lorries known as trailers, at much reduced costs and with many hauliers lining up to employ them.
But such training is not in the radar of the Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR), which is actively promoting Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
Its lengthy programmes are ideal for school leavers but are too long for adults that must earn a living.
For example, Level 1 under the National Occupational Skills Standard (NOSS) requires 600 hours or six months of training, Level 2 another 600 hours and Level 3, 1,200 hours.
All these are for Malaysian Skills Certificates, and longer hours for Diploma and Advanced Diploma.
Commercial vehicle drivers are at Level 2, and GDL and PSV should have separate programmes. A shorter NOSS called National Competency Standards (NCS) is more suitable to train those wishing to drive lorries or buses, similar to NCS developed for tourist drivers.
While the NCS for tourist drivers is meant to train existing taxi drivers, with those at Pangkor and Merbok benefitting from training programmes, the NCS for lorry and bus drivers should include obtaining the CDL for heavy vehicles plus GDL for lorries or PSV for buses.
If NCS for lorry and bus drivers exists but are not used, then the programmes must have been poorly developed or the Department of Skills Development (JPK) had not been proactive in making them popular with transport operators.
Such training will be more than what driving institutes are offering and meant to churn out a new breed of professional drivers with NCS certificates.
Apart from normal skills that could be learned from driving schools, trainees must also acquire a deeper knowledge and understanding of their jobs and industry.
But more importantly is to develop the right mindset, attitude, habits and discipline needed to handle a heavy commercial vehicle professionally.
This would become a reality if the programmes and salaries offered are appealing to large number of adults, including unemployed graduates.
Success is assured by inviting transport operators to come on board through sponsorship or job interviews while trainees are undergoing training.
It should interest fresh graduates as they could earn more as a commercial vehicle driver than most salaried jobs they can get.
Those who are game to drive trailers could easily take home RM3,000 to RM7,000 monthly as some are earning up to RM9,000.
If such blue collared jobs and clean air-conditioned environment is not sexy enough, then we can forget about promoting TVET to Malaysians.
One of the reasons why large number of graduates are unemployed is due to many of them being cocooned in the same environment and continuing to mix with a small circle of friends.
They need to be exposed by leaving their comfort zones and none better than working as an express or tour bus driver, which allows them to meet many domestic and foreign tourists on every trip.
Without the benefit of exposure to different people and situations and engaging well with them, these unemployed graduates will never graduate from the University of Life, which is far more important than their diploma or degree, as the certificate is nothing more than a piece of paper.
Ironically, unemployed graduates with a degree are categorised as skilled workers in Malaysia when in fact they have inadequate skills to land a job.
On the other hand, school dropouts with driving licences for heavy vehicles and trained to handle prime movers skillfully are not counted as skilled workers. It clearly showed how myopic the authorities can be.
In any case, we should always bear in mind that knowledge and skills are only part of the equation. Career success can only be obtained and sustained with the right attitude, skills, knowledge, exposure and discipline (ASKED).
Discipline is necessary to form good habits, which affect a person more than belief, and those without adequate discipline would eventually succumb to corruption and ruin a lifetime of career success.
But first, the authorities, particularly MOHR, ought to lend a helping hand by facilitating programmes using NCS to train professional lorry and bus drivers, as relying on the current system and driving institutes will only churn out more of the same, with some drivers turning our roads into killing fields.
According to Pan Malaysian Bus Operators Association president Datuk Mohamad Ashfar Ali, there is an acute shortage of 5,000 bus and commercial vehicle drivers in the country and this situation has led to indiscipline among drivers, as they feel they are irreplaceable or could easily get a job with another operator.
In such a scenario, safety and security is compromised and the fate of the vehicles, cargo, passengers and other road users are at the mercy of many undisciplined lorry and bus drivers. It is imperative the authorities address the biggest elephant in the room and discontinue pretending they could not see.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
