Malaysia auf die Arbeit der Zukunft vorbereiten
Preparing Malaysians for the work of the future
"WHAT do you want to be when you grow up?" This is one question we have all
been asked at one point in our lives, whether the answer requires a 350-word
essay or just one-word, usually referring to a job.
How does one answer
this same question today with automation taking place and the fact that many
jobs of the future do not exist yet?
A good example is social media jobs.
It is hard to imagine a high-paying social media job a decade ago and this same
job may be completely transformed in the near future, if it still exists at
all.
Over one-third of skills that are considered important in today's
workforce will probably have changed five years from now based on research by
the World Economic Forum (WEF). The young people today will need a portfolio of
skills and capabilities to navigate the complex world of work in the
future.
In fact, a report by Deloitte University Press on "Re-imagining
Higher Education" predicts that 50 per cent of the content in an undergraduate
degree will be obsolete within five years due to the impact of digital
transformation.
While we talk about the future of work — which jobs will
disappear and which will remain — we also need to shift the focus to understand
the skills and capabilities in demand.
Another WEF report, The Future of Jobs, identified complex problem solving,
critical thinking and creativity as the top three skills out of 10 that workers
will need in 2020.
Although active listening is considered a core skill
today, the report said that it will completely disappear from being an important
skill at the workplace. Instead, emotional intelligence is said to become one of
the top skills needed by all in the future.
Linear careers, where the
path begins with the choices you made in the subjects you studied at university
before entering the world of work, will be far less common. There is a strong
need to constructively engage employers in changing the education system in the
years to come.
The allocation of ringgit (RM)4.9 billion for technical
and vocational education Training (TVET) institutions in the 2018 Budget is
definitely more necessary now than ever before to prepare for the work of the
future.
Malaysia plans to have 35 per cent of skilled workforce by 2020
to achieve a high-income nation status. The government has also set a goal to
increase the country's percentage of skilled workers to 45 per cent by 2030. It
is about time the country upgrades its TVET system.
If there is one thing
that TVET can do is that it could provide a means of tackling unemployment.
Vocational education tends to result in a faster transition into the workplace
and countries that place greater emphasis on TVET have been successful in
maintaining low youth unemployment rates.
However, a negative social bias
has often prevented young people from enrolling in TVET. Although vocational
subjects are more varied, they are often poorly understood.
Many people
associate vocational track programmes with low academic performance, poor
quality provision and blocked future pathways that do not lead to higher
education. Young people and parents shun vocational education, which they regard
as a "second-choice" education option.
Academic subjects are valued more
highly than vocational ones. Medicine, law and engineering are seen as career
options with huge earnings potential. Several academic studies also caution
against specialising vocational subjects at a young age because they are more
specific and directly related to particular occupations.
For TVET to be
valued as the equal of academic education, further education providers should
not be overlooked.
The integration of on-the-job training and lifelong
learning into TVET curriculum can ensure that graduates are job-ready yet
adaptable to changing skills requirements.
The funding is necessary so
that TVET institutions can upgrade learning environments and invest in
professional development. In return, it can raise teaching quality by increasing
the qualification levels of the instructors and making pedagogical training
obligatory.
Finland is one example of TVET success — a result of external
and internal policy shifts — that we can learn from. The country's systematic
efforts since 2000 to upgrade the quality and status of TVET has lead to an
increased percentage of application for the programmes from the Finnish
youth.
TVET institutions in this country received the same basic and
development funding as general education institutions. The curriculum has been
restructured to include the national core curriculum required for access to
university, as well as strong on-the-job training and lifelong learning
components. TVET students are allowed to progress to further studies at
university or applied sciences level.
Many parents' worst nightmare is
seeing their child aimlessly chasing dream without achieving anything. It is
time that we should retire asking the young ones on what they want to be when
they grow up.
Instead, we should provide accurate information and
exposure to where future jobs will exist, including the skills to craft and
navigate their careers.
It looks like learning and adapting will become
more apparent in the future of workforce. As more students will find themselves
doing work that does not exist, we should prepare them intellectually, socially
and emotionally to continuously adapt to changes.
- The writer left her teaching career more than 20 years ago to take on different challenges beyond the conventional classroom. As NST's education editor, the world is now her classroom.
Quelle: New Straits Times, nst.com.my, 08.11.2017