Sarawak govt to come up with mechanism for talent development

KUCHING: Sarawak will come up with a mechanism to collaborate and engage with industry players and academic and skills training institutions for talent development.

State Education, Innovation and Talent Development Minister Datuk Roland Sagah said this would allow training and higher learning institutions to be constantly updated on the skills required by various industries.

He also said that this will allow them to plan their courses accordingly.

“A lot of new input needs to be added to courses so that we can improve marketability and how our people will work based on future needs,” he told reporters after opening the ministry’s first talent development workshop here on Wednesday (July 13).

Sagah said nearly a dozen industry sectors were listed in Sarawak’s post-Covid development strategy 2030, each with their own subsectors, skill sets and workforce requirements.

“In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, it is understood that the workforce requirements may change from time to time from the initial estimates,” said Sagah.

“Hence, the ministry wants to formalise and institutionalise an engagement and collaboration mechanism with all sector leads, industry players and also our academic and skills training institutions,” he added.

Sagah said the ministry’s new talent development division would help to identify strategies and initiatives to close the demand and supply gap in industries.

He said the workshop would provide ideas and direction for the ministry to formulate a framework for talent development and come up with key performance indicators.

“At the end of the day, we want to have enough local workers for the various industry sectors in our state,” he said.