The Marketability of National Dual Training System (NDTS) Graduates in the Industry

Abstract

In line with the government's policy to improve and streamline skills training in the country, the government took the initiative to upgrade and develop the teaching and learning methods of the skills training system. One of the efforts is the implementation of National Dual Training System (NDTS), which provides special trainings to produce advanced skilled workers that meet the requirements of the industry. This study investigates the marketability of NDTS graduates based on the aspect of marketability in the industry to help the management and accredited centres identify the needs of employers. The objective of the study is to assess the marketability factor of NDTS graduates based on their productivity, the number of hired graduates at a company, salary offered, and the duration in securing employment after they graduate. The study focused on the employers and employees in three main sectors-Government-Linked Companies (GLCs), Multi-National Corporation (MNC) and Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs). The study is a descriptive survey study, which also applied the quantitative method. The instrument utilized was a set of questionnaire, which was analysed using the IBM SPSS Statistics version 20.0. The perspective of employers and NDTS-graduate employees was also evaluated to determine their scale of recognition on productivity, work quality and program implementation, and also the SLDN graduates themselves. The overall findings substantiate that employers and employees had a positive perception towards the marketability of NDTS graduates in the industry. This shows that employers, especially those from the SMEs were supportive of the implementation of the programme to produce competent and competitive workers for the industry.