Skills Development in The Asia-Pacific Maritime World: A Comparative Study of Vocational Education in Malaysia and Indonesia

Abstract

This region of Southeast Asia shares more social and cultural ties with other Austronesian peoples in the Pacific than with the peoples of mainland Southeast Asia. Contemporarily, Asia Pacific is still the fastest growing economic region in the world despite economic turbulence and uncertainties in recent years due to the global economic slow-down. As one of centres of economic power, the region could hardly remain immune to the globalizing impact of economic and technological change. The purpose of this study was to explore the development of Technical and Vocational education in Malaysia and Indonesia by analyzing the history, policies, and its direction. In Malaya, the Technical and Vocational education prior to independence had projected the images of “colonial apprenticeship” with the emphasis on manual agricultural and crafts, which aimed at training the Malay students to fill positions in the Railway department under the Federated Malay States. After independence, Technical and Vocational education in Malaysia continued to grow, and some reforms have been implemented to improve the image of Technical and Vocational education itself. In Indonesia, a similar development occurred but the difference is in terms of Technical and Vocational education funding at the secondary level where there are many private Technical and Vocational schools as compared to Malaysia. There are new concepts introduced in Technical and Vocational education, such as the Tech-Prep, Time Sector Privatization and Vocational Colleges in Malaysia and Link and Match, Dual System, Product-based Curriculum, and Total Performance Management (TPM) in Indonesia, but the concepts are yet to be carried out optimally due of some constraints. The implications of this study are to identify the human capital development in the maritime Archipelago countries from the perspectives of the competitiveness and the preparation for dealing with the impact of globalization.