Transforming TVET in Malaysia: Harmonizing the Governance Structure in a Multiple Stakeholder Setting

Malaysia is in need for highly-skilled human resources to close the present demand-supply gap in various industries, particularly those driving economic transformation. The government has determined that the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector as the main route in providing highly-skilled human resources and also one of the key drivers of the economy for Malaysia to become a high-income nation. While this study recognizes that initiatives have been taken to continuously improve the sector through the TVET transformation programs, it is imperative that the governance issues faced by the key stakeholder are systematically addressed to ensure that the operating and delivery system can be optimized. This paper provides an overview and an analysis of the TVET transformation programs and the governance issues including several challenges to the development of the TEVT sector. A review from various published documents to the present has been used to provide a comprehensive summary of literature of Malaysia’s TVET transformation and governance issues. This study also hopes to suggest certain measures for an effective governance of the TVET sector so that the decisions and actions of multiple stakeholders towards driving the performance and quality of this sector can be harmonized.