‘Good money in technical education’

Taib testing his driving skills at an exhibition booth put up at the ‘PPKS National Technical HRD Conference 2011’ yesterday. – Bernama photo

KUCHING: Children, especially those from the rural areas, should be encouraged to pursue technical education because the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) would require at least 217,000 semi-skilled workers by 2030, said the chief minister yesterday.

Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said efforts should now be made to help parents in the rural areas understand the situation so they would take proactive measures to spur their children to be technically skilful.

Speaking at ‘PPKS National Technical HRD Conference 2011’ here, Taib also spoke of the need for all the key players, especially those in technical and vocational institutions, to work together to ensure the level of technical education in the state was on par with that in countries such as Germany and Australia.

One area which needed serious attention is the bridging of the gap between those at the certificate, diploma and tertiary levels.

Taib told those present that the supply of manpower, especially those at the lower skill level, ought to be pondered seriously because there was likely to be a shortage when countries in the South East Asian region, especially Malaysia, hit the high-income economy status in the near future.

“The competition will be tough and the best solution is to train more people now as we cannot just fight the situation by `buying’ people to work here,” Taib said.

He said he foresee technical education mushrooming into a rewarding one for the people in the future.

“The view that working in the technical field is not prestigious would no longer be relevant in future as it is a potential source of high income,” he said.

Taib revealed that to get more people to become interested in technical education, efforts to explain job opportunities related to technical education would be organised.

“Awareness campaigns (on technical education) would be implemented in the rural areas for the benefit of the youths there,” he said.

On PPKS, Taib advised them to proceed with what they were doing until some kind of cooperation and coordination could be etched out between them and University College Laila Taib in Sibu.

“The government is trying to get these two entities together not only to hasten the pace of training but also to make such trainings more practical and match the requirements of SCORE,” Taib revealed.

credit to Borneo Post