Challenges in Implementing Engineering Technology Education in Malaysia

As Malaysia races against time to achieve Vision 2020 to be a developed nation, there is an urgent need for highly-skilled human resources to fulfill the requirements of the industry. This calls for an expansion of the engineering technology program to increase the number of technical graduates. However, various challenges are faced by the institutions in the implementation of the Engineering Technology programs, which have significant negative impact on the nation in general and, in particular the graduates from the programs. Data was collected from a brainstorming session between six organizations involved in providing engineering technology education in Malaysia and the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and a convention on Engineering Technology Future in Malaysia. This paper describes and discusses the challenges faced in the efforts to expand engineering technology programs in Malaysia, and proposes ways to overcome them.