IPOH, The government is urging industry players to provide their employees with opportunities for advanced education, aiming to enhance productivity and increase the number of skilled workers in the nation’s industrial sector.
Deputy Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Liew Chin Tong, highlighted that such models, prevalent in advanced nations like Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, foster continuous progress in the industrial sector.
“In those countries, many successful programmes exist where companies sponsor their employees’ education while they work. This could mean working for two days and studying for three, or studying for two weeks and then working for two weeks. This approach is what the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and his deputies refer to as work-based learning.
‘To boost the workforce in factories and manufacturing sectors, we must provide opportunities and financial support for learning. A fresh paradigm is needed,” he added.
He said this to reporters after l
aunching the E-Invoicing Perdana Programme and New Industrial Master Plan 2030 (NIMP 2030) for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) here today.
Liew said the government has formed a dedicated committee chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to oversee the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector which plays a crucial role in developing skilled workers for the industrial sector.
“Currently, the government is prioritising the expansion of TVET programmes to increase the number of engineers in the semiconductor sector,” he said.
In addition, he highlighted that the NIMP 2030 charts the nation’s course, with a particular emphasis on fostering an industrial landscape that incorporates more green technology, along with digitisation, artificial intelligence (AI), automation and other technologies.
He said for these efforts to succeed, the nation requires a skilled workforce, coupled with the assurance of fair wages for workers to prevent them from seeking opportuni
ties abroad.
Source: BERNAMA News Agency
