Ingenieur Vol.72 ingenieur October 2017-FA3 | Page 15

adopted by engineering programmes. “This will
bring us back to the engineering education of the
past era where we had the so-called sandwich
programmes,” Ir. Dr Siti Hamisah notes. BEM’s
Dato’ Ir. Fong expresses concern that students
may not have enough exposure to theories if
academic studies were compressed into two
years.
At the entry level, there is still the perception
that engineering programmes no longer attract the
best students from high schools. This is related
to the waning interest in science, technology and
engineering or STEM among Malaysian students.
Ir.Dr Siti Hamisah notes that the Ministry is working
to build a STEM movement with professors to
instil more interest in science-based subjects.
The focus is to attract students who are good in
number crunching and programming.
In regards to the current focus of the Ministry,
Ir. Dr Siti also informs us that the Ministry has
embarked on an extensive effort to align the
academic programmes with the elements of
Industry 4.0. Soon, the Higher Education 4.0
Framework will be introduced to ensure that
Malaysian higher education institutions are ready
for the disruptions that will take place, and are
able to equip the future graduates with the skills
and knowledge needed in the era of technology
convergence.
Ir. Dr Siti Hamisah believes that there are
bright prospects for students who have both
technical and soft skills competences. The
various programmes planned by the Ministry of
Higher Education in redesigning higher education
are geared towards making them “future ready”.
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