Govt funds sought to upgrade workers’ skills
KOTA KINABALU: The government has been urged to consider allocating funds to upskill and re-skill the current workforce, particularly in the critical industries in Sabah such as the retail and hospitality industry.
Gain For Life Academy managing director Nelson Mosinoh said that the allocation should be spent on improving their communication skills, language skills, selling or marketing skills, computer skills and manymore.
“The impact of investing in our local human capital development is that the efficiency of our local talent would increase, business flourishes, employers happy to pay higher wages, tourists happy and satisfied and would spend more and in the end the government’s income would increase. It is going to be like a domino effect where every stakeholder would benefit from it and in the end the rakyat will be happy,” he said when speaking at the graduation ceremony for 90 of the academy’s trainees held at the Le Meridien yesterday.
Nelson also urged the government to look into the present workforce who had been working at their current job for many years but did not have the opportunity to be promoted due to the lack of formal education qualification or due to lack of opportunity to go for selfimprovement training.
He said that most of these workers were poor and came from the rural areas.
He also said that the academy had gathered information while carrying out its Recognition of Prior Experiential Learning (RPEL) with Servay Hypermarket last year and found that 80 percent out of 90 candidates from the interior failed to complete their formal education due mainly to poverty.
“Records show most of them have a total working experience in retail for more than 10 years and some even more than 20 years,” he said.
He added that these workers were skillful, but their skills were not recognized formally since they have no paper qualification to vouch for their skills to their potential employer.
Nelson also related that based on the statistics provided by the Statistics Malaysia Department, the number of unemployed in Sabah is 107,500 this year, and was only 90,600 in the year 2014.
Sabah also has the highest number of unemployed graduates in the year 2017 at 27,540 people as compared to only 5,916 unemployed graduates in Melaka, which was the lowest number.
The reasons for their unemployment, said Nelson, ranged from unrealistic demand, demanding, poor communication skills, mismatch between the needs of the industry and supply and the attitude of both graduates and their parents.
The event was officiated by Assistant Education and Innovation Minister Jenifer Lasimbang who said that people must learn to live, practice, learn, think and perform as the requirement of the 21st century dictates.
According to the assistant minister, the 21st century is a century of continuous explosion of technological inventions and implementation, and a global economy that makes challenges somewhat different from before.
“It is a century of machines, computers and electronics where many jobs handled by humans are slowly vanishing, and no industry is left out,” she said.
“The winners of tomorrow, who will sustain and grow, will be those who are knowledgeable, skilled, committed, loyal, innovative, talented and passionate top performers with the right mental attitude,” she said.
Jenifer also stressed on the importance of being proficient in communication skills, adding that people should make the extra effort to acquire and improve their skills as this will help them to gain employment.
Gain ForLife Academy also signed two Letters of Intent to train and employ with Servay and Pick and Pay.