11MP: Focus on human capital development

PETALING JAYA: The 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP) will focus on four key areas to accelerate human capital development to achieve Vision 2020.
The four focus areas are - Improving the labour market efficiency to accelerate economic growth; transforming the technical vocational education and training (TVET) to meet industry demand; improving the quality of education for better student outcomes and institutional excellence and strengthening lifelong learning for skills enhancement.
In order to improve the labour market efficiency, a 3.7% per-annum labour productivity target has been set for the 11MP as compared to the 10MP.
The 11MP is looking at a 58% increase in the number of employees that will benefit from the expansion of the Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Act (HRDF) 2001 - from 1.77 million employees in 2014 to 2.8 million in 2020.
To improve the quality of education for better student outcomes and institutional excellence, the 11MP states that Malaysia aims to be at least on par with the international average in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Stud (TIMSS) as well as having two universities to be ranked among the Top 100 of the QS World University Rankings and to have 100% student enrolment from preschool to upper secondary.
Collectively, the changes arising from these focus areas will produce a fundamental shift in how the system currently operates, the 11MP states, where TVET will shift from being government-driven to one that enables industry-led programmes and interventions.
"To drive the human capital development agenda during the 11MP, the government will establish a high-powered National Human Capital Development Council (NHCDC) in which the council will not only be composed of ministers and implementers from relevant agencies.
"Instead, it will comprise of major private sector players and industry representatives, making the council similar to the existing Economic Council and it will set overall human capital development policy direction, determine initiative priorities, and integrate action across public, private, and social sector stakeholders," according to the 11MP.