Readiness of Polytechnic Manufacturing Program in Malaysia towards Future Industry

Abstract

Polytechnic education was introduced in Malaysia with funding from the World Bank in 1969. The purpose is to be one of Malaysia’s education provider to access quality in produce holistic, enterprising and competitive human capital in line with global industrial needs. Currently, there are 37 polytechnics in they that offered quality programs with relevant curriculum. One of the programs is Diploma in Mechanical Engineering (Manufacturing) is competent skills in the field of mechanical engineering to fulfill the demand of workers in the engineering manufacturing sector. For remain competitive especially in terms of future technology advancement, this program needs to be revised so that the students who are produced can meet the requirements of the future industry specially to face the challenging in Industrial Revolution 4.0(IR4.0). To get the clear situation, the qualitative study had been conducting with the interview method to identify how far the adequate of polytechnic manufacturing program towards IR4.0 regarding the readiness of student competency, the effect of the changes and actions taken by polytechnics management. From the findings, it shown that the manufacturing programs in Polytechnic Malaysia need to arrange the strategy to make sure the student or the graduates that they develop can fulfil IR4.0 skills and competencies related.