PUTRAJAYA: Three initiatives – ACES, Maker Market and Pondok Perdana – are being introduced to empower the community colleges in the country.
Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik, who launched the initiatives yesterday, said implementation of the initiatives would enable the community colleges to draw interest and have a place in the people’s hearts.
Through the ACES initiative, namely Apprenticeship, Professional Certification, Entrepreneurship and Sijil Kolej Komuniti (Community College Certificate), Maszlee said the ‘TVET for all’ concept could be appreciated and realised at the community colleges which were life-long learning hubs, as tasked to these institutions through a Cabinet memorandum in 2005.
He said Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) was still not the mainstream choice and many still regarded it as a second choice and by those who were not academically successful.
“We should appreciate and accept that humans have different skills. There are those who have excelled through TVET and because of this, we are committed to making TVET the choice of many,” he added.
On the Maker Market initiative, Maszlee described it as a 21st century learning space and collaborative work space in the community colleges, whereby the users could be creative through their designs and collaboration with the community and industry.
According to him, the Maker Market could be the centre for organising competitions based on developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), and this would be undertaken with the cooperation of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).
“The TVET field can no longer revolve around producing skilled workers only but workers who can drive innovation through their ideas and skills,” he said.
Maszlee said the Pondok Perdana initiative, implemented with the cooperation of Pertubuhan Pondok Perdana, was introduced to add value to the skill sets of pondok school students with TVET skills through a more organised and structured programme.
He said this initiative would open up space for students of pondok schools which were synonymous with Islamic studies and to upgrade their TVET skills before continuing their studies at the certificate or diploma level at the Jeli Community College or Jeli Polytechnic.
Maszlee also said that the name, TVET might also be changed so as to change the generally negative public perception of TVET or vocational education. – Bernama
