Page 44 - ASEAN-EU Dialogue 2018: Regional and Inter-Regional Economic Cooperation: Identifying Priorities for ASEAN and the EU

signals that Malaysia TVET is not producing sufficient talent pool for the need of the
industry. Moreover, the TVET graduates produced are still not fully aligned with the
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industry’s demand. As reported in the 11 MP, though the number of jobs increased
over the last five years, most of them were semi-skilled occupations that in turn
contributed to relatively low labour productivity gains (EPU, 2015). At the same time,
the Global Human Capital Report 2017 indicates that the enrolment rate for Malaysia’s
vocational education is ranked 67 out of 130 economies that were surveyed.

c) R&D Investments and Funding Programmes – More than 70% of R&D investments is
for current expenditures such as labour, operating and maintenance costs. The existent
of too many entities has caused resources and funds to be stretched thin besides weak
coordination, especially in the monitoring and evaluation of STI related activities. An
efficient and effective system of monitoring and evaluation of the funding programmes
are not clearly designed and implemented. Thus, the real impact of the funding
programmes is unknown. Although the recommendation to establish the Research
Management Agency (RMA) as a central agency to host all the funding programmes
has long been discussed and debated, the status of RMA is still unclear.

d) Knowledge and Technology Intensive Industries – Data on KTI industries performance
shows that HT and MHI manufacturing are not the main contributors to the
manufacturing sector value added in comparison to KI services industries. Also, the
growth rates of HT and HTI exports – a proxy to level of technology capabilities of the
industries, are less impressive if compared to KI services industries. Several main
sectors critically linked to Industry 4.0, such as semiconductor; computers and office
machinery; communications; testing, measuring and control instruments; and
machinery and equipment are not showing encouraging progress in terms of
manufacturing value added.

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