Seventy-seven per cent nation’s workforce only attain SPM
“If we do not seriously address the education gap, Malaysia will not have the labour pool that is sufficiently educated and prepared to work in high end industries that our country is developing,” he said.
New Straits Times
NUSAJAYA: Seventy-seven per cent of the country’s workforce had only attained the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia or equivalent academic qualification.
This does not go well with Malaysia’s aspiration to achieve the developed nation status by 2020, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
“If we do not seriously address the education gap, Malaysia will not have the labour pool that is sufficiently educated and prepared to work in high end industries that our country is developing,” he said.
Najib said this when launching Khazanah Nasional’s MYWorkLife Talent Portal at Puteri Habour, here today.
He said that Western Digital Malaysia had announced an investment of USD1.2 billion in this country that would involve the construction of a new 1.5 million sq ft multi-storey building for research, development and manufacture of magnetic head, media components and hard disk drives.
Up to 10,000 additional jobs, involving a substantial number of high-qualification jobs, 100 PhD holders, 1,000 masters or equivalent holders will be created at the facility over time.
“What does that say about us? It means that we have not developed enough people both in qualitative and quantitative terms to fulfil the requirement of knowledge and innovative economy,” he said.
