KUALA LUMPUR: As we usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the upskilling and reskilling of workers, and the need to refine the education system have become matters of paramount importance.
The recent Fourth Leap Conference organised by the Wordlabs Business Network (WBN), brought together highly esteemed panellists from industrial powerhouses such as Touch n Go, BMW, Monash University Malaysia, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Institute of Labour Market Information and Analysis (Ilmia), Ministry of Human Resources, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia UKM, Strand Aerospace, Fave, and HSBC, to discuss crucial matters pertaining to 4IR.
In his opening address, WBN CEO and Founder, Sritharan Vellasamy said: “One of the greatest promises of 4IR in Malaysia is to improve the quality of life of the citizens, and raise income levels.”
“The intent of Wordlabs is not to necessarily educate business practitioners and enablers on just the operational issues but to also focus on the strategic issues in order to take a more comprehensive view.”
The Director of the Ilmia, Wan Zulkfli bin Wan Setapa, expressed concerns over the skills gap between the Malaysian workforce and industry demands, and cited a decline of quality and interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects as a major factor behind the issue.
“In our journey to become a high-income nation, we must be prepared to strengthen our workforce and be ready to produce a highly-skilled pool of talent to meet future needs, demands and challenges from the industry,” said Wan Zulkifli.
Principal Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Human Resource, Dr. Ridzuan Kushairi said that one of the challenges of 2020 was to make a market-ready workforce, and emphasised on the importance of soft skills.
“When we were developing the human capital development policy, we were struggling to find out what industries need,“ he said.
“After conducting surveys, we found that there was a mixture of skills that the industry was looking for. A lot of those skills were actually soft skills, which was surprising for us. We had been very focused on technical skills.”
Vice President (Research and Development) of Monash University Malaysia, Prof. Dr. Mahendhiran Nair said that academic institutions play a key role in the industrial revolution but need to change their methods to stay relevant with current industrial requirements.
“One of the key things that we see is that academic institutions are an integral part of the 4IR ecosystem,” he said.
“I think the traditional way of teaching and learning needs to change. Much of it is silo-driven, but 4IR with converging technology platforms requires multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary skillsets.”
Themed ‘What’s up? Is Malaysia doing enough to compete in the 4IR era’, the conference was attended by over 200 guests ranging from C-level executives to researchers, academicians, and local SMEs.
During the conference, WBN unveiled their Wordlabs e-Learning platform that boasts up to 30,000 courses covering topics from compliance through to professional development and soft skills training.
