Acquiring Key Competencies in Malaysia

Globalisation has changed the way we live in the ever changing world. We see a sea of global trends be it in economics, technology, culture and consumerism. The environmental alterations and the global warming combined with revolution in ICT are causing new concerns and demand for more skilled manpower to deal with. This mandates the authorities to prepare the emerging young generation with global competence so that they are fully prepared for the eventualities. Competency covers the skills, knowledge and the behaviours needed to perform a given job or role effectively. The individuals as well as organisations success depend on the competence of the individual. Given a job or role to play or a situation to handle, the competencies help to understand what an individual is capable of doing. The workplace has changed dramatically in response to a new competitive business environment that is marked by flexibility, fast response time and managerial and technological innovations. They continue to stress that the students are ill-prepared for the future workplace and that they need new kinds of skills to perform well. Education and training should mould and prepare young people to think out dynamic competitive world and to develop them to act as a rational independent agent. So this paper investigates the competency level of the students when they come out of the institutes after completing their programmes. The survey results show that not all the competencies that are envisaged to be developed among the students are acquired by the students.

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