May 26, 2025
SEPANG/BAGAN DATUK – Perak – At 19, Mr Syed Amirul Syafiq Syed Norazman was unsure about his future. Today, the 26-year-old is on track to complete his diploma in electrical engineering, after which he will be a vital part of an electric train maintenance team.
“With my mother’s blessing, I’ve been given this golden opportunity to study in China,” he told The Straits Times while preparing for his first overseas trip.
The training stint in China will help Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students like him enhance their skills and earning potential.
Mr Amirul, who hails from Temerloh, about 130km east of federal capital Kuala Lumpur, was among 102 students from Universiti Kuala Lumpur British Malaysian Institute (UniKL-BMI) who left on May 19 for a year-long practical railway engineering course at the Liuzhou Railway Vocational and Technical College, located about 500km west of Guangzhou city in southern China.
The medium of instruction for the current course at Liuzhou College is English, and trainees will also attend Chinese-language classes.
UniKL-BMI is one of 694 public institutions in Malaysia offering post-secondary technical and vocational training – akin to Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education – with programmes ranging from electrical and electronics engineering and smart automation to culinary arts and fashion, starting from age 15.
This was the latest TVET batch sent for overseas exposure.
Malaysia has sent a total of 2,621 trainees to China as at May 1, 2025, according to Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
“The students stand to benefit from exposure to global-level upskilling in areas such as electric vehicles (EVs), industrial automation systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) during their training in China,” said Datuk Seri Zahid, who is also the National TVET Council chairman.
The TVET tie-ups with Beijing, which started in November 2023, offer 5,125 places to Malaysian students for short-, medium- and long-term training in 220 companies in China through Chinese technical and vocational institutions.
While the TVET route, with a more hands-on approach and focus on practical skills, has been perceived as a less prestigious pathway when compared with traditional tertiary education, much has changed in recent years.
A slew of course offerings in emerging and key areas such as automation, EVs and smart manufacturing has seen a steady rise in enrolment numbers.
Overseas training stints have also given local TVET institutions a boost and enhanced career opportunities for the graduates.
Mr Zahid told ST there were 212,022 new admissions and a total of 436,285 students enrolled in 2024. The numbers have risen steadily in recent years, from 175,780 new admissions and a cohort of 407,038 in 2023; and 166,577 new admissions and a cohort of 394,976 in 2022.
“TVET offers a practical and inclusive pathway for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (equivalent to Singapore’s O levels) holders, especially for those who may not excel academically but show talent, interest and potential in technical fields,” he added.
In the New Industrial Master Plan 2030, TVET has been identified as an important post-secondary sector of education and training for the workforce, in order to meet industry needs.
With changing mindsets, vocational training is no longer a fallback but a launchpad, producing graduates with industry-ready skills who can easily find jobs.
The employability of TVET graduates has reached “99 per cent” in recent years as their skills allow them to be offered job opportunities even before they graduate, Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek told the media in March.
Job prospects are bright for Mr Amirul and his cohort, with mega projects like the RM50.27 billion (S$15.3 billion) East Coast Rail Link, which is expected to start operating in January 2027.
A skilled workforce will be required to maintain the electrified rail network system.
The average starting salary for 90 per cent of TVET graduates is around RM2,000, Mr Zahid noted.
The national minimum wage, as at February 2025, is RM1,700 per month.
An EV instructor, Mr Muhd Amirullah Khairuddin, 29, estimates that EV-maintenance graduates could expect salaries of up to RM6,000 a month, driven by a shortage of skilled workers in Malaysia’s fast-growing EV industry.
According to the Road Transport Department, 28,048 EVs were registered in Malaysia in 2024, up 79 per cent from the previous year.
Malaysia aims to establish 10,000 EV charging stations nationwide by end-2025, according to Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof, who is also the Energy Transition and Water Transformation Minister. The country aspires to become a regional hub for EV production and innovation while strengthening the entire EV value chain, he noted in May.
Looking ahead, the government should allow the private sector to take the lead – instead of continuing with the current government-led supply-driven model – to further advance Malaysia’s vocational pathway, said Dr Wan Chang Da, who has over 10 years of experience in national higher education policy research.
Vocational training in Malaysia is heavily government-driven, with direct funding and support for the TVET institutions.
In other countries like Germany and Switzerland, vocational training is driven by the private sector, where businesses actively participate in the design, delivery and funding of such training programmes to align with industry needs and ensure that graduates are job-ready.
Dr Wan told ST: “I am concerned that the existing government-led approach may cause TVET institutions to turn into conventional academic universities that focus on the institutions and number of graduates.
“Relevant industry players should be the ones designing the TVET curriculum, making it demand-driven and more focused on problem-solving.”
Meantime, in addition to students, TVET instructors from Malaysia are also going abroad for training in emerging technologies to improve their teaching and course development skills.
From November 2024 to March 2025, GiatMARA, a government-funded TVET institution, flew a total of 22 instructors to Wenzhou in eastern Zhejiang province and the capital Beijing for training programmes, lasting one to two months, in EV, smart manufacturing and facility maintenance.
The participants were given basic Mandarin lessons before heading to China.
While there, Malay-Chinese language translators were present during the training sessions, and headsets with multilingual instruction options were also available.
For smart manufacturing instructor Addey Affendy Idam, 44, the time spent in Wenzhou was eye-opening.
“With so much equipment, each trainee had their own machine – unlike in Malaysia, where three would share one. I learnt about advanced IoT and robotics systems, which will help me teach more effectively,” said the industry veteran with nearly 20 years of experience.
In 2027, Mr Addey will launch GiatMARA’s first smart manufacturing course, focusing on machine predictive maintenance incorporating sensors and cloud systems.
One trainee, Mr Amirullah, spoke to ST about his experience in Beijing. “I was shocked to see just how far ahead China is – about five years ahead of Malaysia in the EV sector… and their simulators are cutting-edge,” he said.
The GiatMARA instructor recorded his entire EV training course on a body camera and plans to use the footage for teaching purposes.
He is part of a team involved in setting up the country’s first dedicated EV course at Bagan Datuk, a township 180km north-west from Kuala Lumpur.
It will be launched in July.
In 2024, GiatMARA’s campus in Bagan Datuk was upgraded to become the Malaysia-China Institute, a platform for TVET collaboration between the two countries to develop skilled workers, train instructors and share technology to enhance Malaysia’s TVET system.
Meanwhile, trainee Izzat Zulfiqar Imran, 21, who will be at Liuzhou College for a year, is excited about the possibilities ahead of him, saying: “This programme guarantees my future.”
- Lu Wei Hoong is Malaysia correspondent at The Straits Times, specialising in transport and politics.