During my short but exciting stint with Pasak, the youth agency for the Malaysian state of Perak, we were called upon to coordinate the Technical and Vocational Education and Training ('TVET') in the state. We developed a proposal and identified the various parties for a pilot program but unfortunately the pandemic broke just before the first workshop and a subsequent change of government meant we never got the opportunity to implement the proposal, even though we had everything lined up to start.
The proposal was a bold one which turns the current model on its head. I share this proposal with you so that you can build on it and test out the idea to see if it works.
The players and their respective interests
There are three parties involved in the provision of TVET training and I list their interests below.
The trainees
The trainees' primary interest would be to have a job at the end of the training, preferably in as short a time as possible. There are also secondary interests to learn as much as possible, and have fun in the process.
The employers
Employers seek an employable workforce tailored to their specific needs, ideally without any additional training to be conducted. Trainees should be as far as possible be aligned to their corporate values and have discernible potential for further development.
The educational establishments
Private colleges, as businesses, aim to make a profit. Many would have also have an interest to provide education to young people and to further academic research.
The regulators
Regulators, whether governmental or industrial, seek assessable educational qualifications that are comparable across the entire education industry or their respective industries, and preferably portable between employers and industries.
The problem points in the current system
The main problem is that the key consumer of the output of the students' training are not involved in the design of the curriculum or the assessment of trainees. Employers generally have no control and no direct input into the training programs from which they hire trainees except where invited by colleges or regulators. As such, trainees graduating from these training programs rarely fit well into employers' workforces. Employers often have to provide additional training or sometimes even to retrain trainees before the trainees can start work with them: retraining involving having the trainees to unlearn what they were taught in college. I once asked an employer how long do they need to retrain diploma holders who have studied for 18 months before applying to them for a job and the reply was five months. I then asked how long would be the training if they have taken those trainees straight from school and the reply was seven months. Which meant that 16 months of training were wasted.
The current model depends largely on funding by the government via a student loan that eventually has to be paid off by the student, but who often graduates without the guarantee of a job. As with any government anywhere in the world, there will never be enough funds because of the multiple demands on the scarce resources of public funds. What is truly frustrating is that there are ample funds in the private sector, who stands to benefit from a workable model but unfortunately will not be willing to invest in the education system under the model today if they have no control over the suitability of trainees to their requirements..
In Malaysia, regulators are mostly from the government. In addition to having multiple ministries involved in certification in different industries, creating a hodgepodge of requirements, these departments are often staffed by civil servants with little experience in the education system or in the industry that they are regulating. As a result, the qualification system has been developed according to the civil servants' dreams of a neat and standardised qualification, with defined minimum entry qualifications and training duration for different levels of degrees, diplomas and certificates. Unfortunately the reality of the demands of industries differs with each industry and the entry qualifications, the curriculum, durations, and the assessment methodology are too variable to fit in to that standardised table that civil servants love.
The business model of education institutions maximises their revenue with the duration of the courses that they run. As a result, courses are often padded up to stretch out the duration and it doesn't help when that duration is set by civil servants with little appreciation of the needs of industry. One cannot blame the educational institutions themselves for this as the system is set up in such a way. Education establishments also often find it hard to keep up with the latest machineries required to properly train students and the disconnect between the training program and the employer invariably means that students are trained on machines with only basic commonality with the ones that they will be using when they are employed by the as-yet-unknown employers.
A bold proposal
The current education model in much of the world is that the contract for education is between the college and the student, who then try to convince a sceptical employer that they are ready to start work. What if we were to turn it on its head so that the contract is between the employer and the college? The employer engages the college to provide a workforce that is tailored to their very specific needs.
The training
The employer provides the college with their requirements: the expected output of the training program in the form of the desired capabilities of the students, the entry requirements (academic qualifications and the expected aptitude) as well as the assessment criteria and methodology for the trainees to meet the requirements to be part of their workforce. The college will then use its extensive marketing network to source applicants and upon successful first interviews, passes them on to the employer for the final interviews. Successful applicants will sign a conditional contract with the employer, conditional upon them passing the assessments at the end of the training. This guarantees trainees a job at the end of the training and enables the employer some form of control over the trainees being trained, weeding out youths who lacks an aptitude for that particular career at an early stage. Upon signing the contract, the trainee is subject to the discipline of the employer (mostly relating to attendance and general behaviour expected of a college student - colleges may currently have little leeway to discipline students as the students are their customers), exposing students to the expectations of working life at a much earlier stage.
Resources for training could include trainers released by the employer as well as using machines provided by the employer. Employers regularly upgrade their machines to newer models and while the superseded machines may not the latest model, they are often have sufficient similarities to current models to facilitate an almost complete training for trainees. And by the way, outside of college hours these machines could be used by small local businesses whose occasional use may not justify the purchase of an entire machine: for instance, a training kitchen could be used at weekends or at night by a baker who would not otherwise have access to an industrial kitchen. This brings in additional revenue that could be shared by the college and the employer, who would still own the machines involved, as well as facilitate entrepreneurship within the community.
Funding
Assessment at the end of the training will be conducted by managers and supervisors of the employers because as the paymaster for this program, they have the right to determine which trainee fulfils their employment criteria. Successful trainees will be inducted straight into the employer's workforce and the training will be paid for by the employer. There could be an option to fund part of the training via a student loan from the employer, which the successful trainee will pay via salary deductions over the minimum employment contract period.
The question arises who pays for those who failed? I feel that employer should be paying a portion of the course, which could be a straight percentage of the total cost of the training or the cost up to a specific point of the training. This will reduce the moral hazard to employers taking a chance on a risky applicant if they know they do not have to pay for any wrong decisions, thus avoid resources, time and effort. The rest of the cost could be borne by the government with an option of being funded by a student loan, as it would be in the current model in event of a failure. Due to the shorter duration of the course, the student loan would be comparatively smaller than what it would be today: so, the government and trainee who bears the cost under the current model, would be better off under this proposal.
Certification
At the end of a successful training, the trainee would receive a certificate issued by the employer that would be recognised only by the employer. The trainee would likely obtain further certificates from the employer as their career progresses with the same employer. As these training are very specific to the employer, the trainee may have to undergo additional training with a new employer on leaving the employer as the job and the machines may be different. At this point, education regulators need not be involved as this is considered workforce training by employers. Human Resource Development Funds could also be available if the college is properly certified by the Malaysian HRDF.
If there is a mechanism for the industry body to be involved in the development of the assessment criteria, the certificate could be recognised by members of the industrial body. Acceptance by the industry body will go some way to facilitate portability of the certification, at least within the industry. Nevertheless, at this point, this certification will unlikely to be portable across industries or count towards an academic qualifications like diplomas or degrees.
For this to happen, credits would need to be granted for each certificate awarded. These credits will be standardised across all industries. A database could be set up to track each trainee and the training, certificates and credits that they have obtained. Credits could count towards exemptions for diploma or degree courses if these training are recognised as contributing to academic courses. For this to happen, cooperation across industries as well as support of the regulators are critical. This would of course introduce some bureaucracy & costs and reduce inefficiency but that would be the price for certification portability.
Pros and cons
I have listed down that pros and cons for the respective players as follows:
The students
Pros
Guaranteed jobs at the end of the training
Shorter training period
Lower student loans, especially in event of failing the training program
Cons
Being subject to work discipline during the training period may turn some students off
The employers
Pros
Control over training quality of recruits
Rapid adaptation of training programs if requirements changes
Simplified recruitment process if the college were to filter the first round of interviews
Opportunity to observe and assess recruits before entering the workforce
Better use of HRDF contributions
Cons
Funding and investment required, with its consequent effort and increased risks
Trainers and machines required for the training may tie up resources
The education institutions
Pros
Curriculum more relevant to needs of the economy
Credit collection simplified with smaller number of corporate customers instead of collection from a large number of students
Lower costs of machinery and training resources
Cons
Additional administration to handle a larger number of shorter courses instead of a smaller number of longer courses currently.
The government and regulators
Pros
Economic benefits from more efficient and relevant training
Lower funding costs for TVET training
Cons
More complicated and 'messy' certification structure
This proposal is more likely to be appropriate for larger employers. Smaller businesses with less funding and a leaner workforce (meaning less buffer for training) may not find this proposal workable. Our initial plans was to run a pilot program with three employers and three colleges, covering the main scenarios and if successful could be deployed to the rest of the industry. From there, we hope to learn enough to develop a proposal for small and medium enterprises, given sufficient consultations with the relevant industry players.
I hope this proposal is complete enough for anyone seeking to implement something. If you encounter any problem with this proposal, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will see what I can do to help.
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