ICT_Human_Capital_Framework

By NATIONAL ICT HUMAN RESOURCES TASKFORCE ICT HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT
FRAMEWORK Final Version; October 2010

ICT HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK __________________________________________________________________________________________ NATIONAL ICT HUMAN RESOURCES
TASKFORCE Page 2 Foreword by Minister of Higher Education This ICT Human Capital Development Framework is conceptualized at a very important and crucial time - when our country is accelerating our effort to transform from a middle-income country to a high income, developed nation, as called for in the New Economic Model (NEM). Critical for this transformation are the quality of our human capital, innovation, and the effective adoption of ICT in both the supply and demand sides. I believe this ICT Human Capital Development Framework outlines the required integrated approach that will address the many issues and challenges that face the human capital for ICT in Malaysia, while seizing the opportunities that arise out of globalization and the rapid pace of technological development. This ICT Human Capital Development Framework sets out a clear and compelling vision and suggests the principles and policy measures that are needed to ensure that as a country, Malaysia will have a continued access to quality and competitive workforce. I take this opportunity to thank the National ICT Taskforce and all the stakeholders who contributed toward the development of this framework. This framework is a manifestation of a multi- stakeholder, inclusive and collaborative process to address the perennial issue of the mismatch between ICT skills supply and demand, and prepare our most precious resource – human capital – to take Malaysia to the next level of growth. I urge all involved now to forge even closer collaboration to turn this framework into actionable programs that will yield the outcomes that we all want for our country.

TASKFORCE Page 3 Acknowledgement This ICT Human Capital Development Framework is the result of a series of consultations, dialogues, and workshops among the members of the National ICT Human Resource Taskforce and key ministries, agencies and industry organizations. Grateful acknowledgement is accorded to the following parties for their valuable contribution.  Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE) o Prof. Dr. Rujhan Mustafa, Deputy Director General (IPTA Sector)  ICT Human Resource Taskforce, Technology Roadmap Taskforce and MADICT Committee. o Prof. Dr. Khairuddin Ab Hamid, Vice Chancellor, UNIMAS (Chairman) o Prof. Dr. Zaharin Yusoff, President, MMU (Alternate Chairman) o Prof. Dato’ Ir. Dr. Mashkuri Yaacob, Vice Chancellor, UNITEN o Prof. Dr. Aziz Deraman, Vice Chancellor, UMT o Prof. Dr. Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer, Dean, UNIMAS (Secretary) o Prof. Dr. Rosni Abdullah, Dean, USM o Prof. Dr. Haji Shahrin Sahib@Sahibuddin, Dean, UTeM o Prof. Dr. Abdul Hanan Abdullah, Dean, UTM o Prof. Dato’ Dr. Halimah Badioze Zaman, UKM o Prof. Dr. Ahmad Zaki Abu Bakar, UTM o Prof. Dr. Tengku Mohamad Tengku Sembok,Assistant Vice Chancellor, UPNM o Prof. Dr. Abu Talib Othman, Deputy President, UniKL o Prof. Dr. Shamsul Sahibuddin, Director, CASE, UTM o Prof. Madya Dr. Suhaidi Hassan, Assistant Vice Chancellor, UUM  Majlis Dekan ICT Institusi Pengajian Tinggi Awam (MADICT)  Malaysia National Computer Confederation (MNCC) o YM Dato’ Dr. Raja Malik Raja Mohamed, President, o Tuan Syed Mohamad Syed Hussin, Executive Director o Mr. R. Kunaseelan

TASKFORCE Page 4  Persatuan Industri Komputer dan Multimedia (PIKOM) o Mr. Shaifubahrim Saleh, President, PIKOM  Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) o Dr Amirul Abdul Wahab, Secretary, ICT Policy Division o Mr. Ooi Seong Hoe, Deputy Secretary, ICT Policy Division  Unit Pemodenan Tadbiran dan Perancangan Pengurusan Malaysia (MAMPU) o Dato’ Normah Md. Yusof, Director General (up until 31st May 2010) o Dato’ Dr. Nor Aliah Mohd Zahri, Deputy Director General - ICT  Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) o Dato’ Ab. Khalil Ab. Hamid, Deputy Director General, JPA  MIMOS Berhad o Dr. Chandran Elamvazuthi, Senior Director, Technology Management Unit  Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) o Mr. Imran Kunalan Abdullah, General Manager, K-Worker Development o Dr. Yew Kok Meng, Senior Manager, K-Worker Development  MSC Technology Centre Sdn. Bhd. (MSCTC) o Mohamad Suhaimi Mohamad Tahir, CEO (As Consultant)

TASKFORCE Page 5 1 Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 7 2 Why do we need an ICT Human Capital Development Framework? ........................................... 10 2.1 Background ........................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Vision and Goals ................................................................................................................... 10 3 What are the opportunities? .......................................................................................................... 12 3.1 Aligning with and supporting National Transformation ....................................................... 12 3.1.1 New Economic Model (NEM) ...................................................................................... 13 3.1.2 10th Malaysia Plan ......................................................................................................... 14 3.2 Talent to implement National ICT strategies ........................................................................ 16 3.2.1 MyICMS886 strategy .................................................................................................... 16 3.2.2 National ICT Roadmap ................................................................................................. 17 3.2.3 MSC Malaysia 2.0 (2010-2020) .................................................................................... 18 3.3 Demand for ICT talent expected to grow .............................................................................. 19 4 What are the issues and root causes? ............................................................................................ 22 4.1 Gradual decline in the number of ICT graduates .................................................................. 22 4.1.1 Contributing factors for decline of ICT enrolment ....................................................... 24 4.2 Short shelf life of ICT talent in Malaysia ............................................................................. 25 4.3 Predominant consumer culture .............................................................................................. 26 4.4 Lack of Professional Body for ICT workforce ..................................................................... 27 4.5 Heavy focus on middle income activities ............................................................................. 28 4.6 Regional competition ............................................................................................................ 28 4.7 Mismatch of supply and demand of ICT skills ..................................................................... 29 4.8 The root causes for decline in quality ICT HR ..................................................................... 31 5 What needs to be done? ................................................................................................................ 34 5.1 Raise workforce competency ................................................................................................ 35 5.1.1 Strengthen ICT curriculum with demand-driven approach........................................... 35 5.1.2 Strengthen ICT foundation in education system ........................................................... 37 5.1.3 Expand enrolment in ICT .............................................................................................. 38 5.2 Build greater R&D and innovative capacity ......................................................................... 38 5.2.1 Channel R&D and commercialisation to strategic focus areas ..................................... 38 5.2.2 Establish a Boutique ICT University ............................................................................ 43 5.2.3 Increase tri-partite collaboration in Research, Development & Commercialisation ..... 44 5.3 Institutionalise professional recognition and standards ........................................................ 45 5.3.1 Form a Board of Computing Professionals Malaysia ................................................... 45 5.3.2 Promote professional development of practitioners ...................................................... 47 5.3.3 Re-brand and promote ICT as career of choice ............................................................ 49 6 What are the expected outcomes? ................................................................................................. 51 7 Conclusion and the next steps ....................................................................................................... 52 TABLE OF CONTENT

TASKFORCE Page 6 Appendix 1 – Key abbreviations used in this framework ..................................................................... 54 Appendix 2 – Major References of Data and Analysis ......................................................................... 55 Appendix 3 – Professionalism of ICT – Action Plan ............................................................................ 56 Appendix 4 – Current Milestones for ICT Human Capital Framework ............................................... 57 Table of Figures: Figure 1 : National Transformation Blueprint ...................................................................................... 13 Figure 2 : Strategic Directions for 10th Malaysia Plan .......................................................................... 15 Figure 3 : MyICMS886 strategy ........................................................................................................... 17 Figure 4 : Technology Focus Area ....................................................................................................... 18 Figure 5 MSC 2.0 strategic framework ................................................................................................. 19 Figure 6 : ICT Demand projection and skill level ................................................................................ 20 Figure 7: Decline in ICT Graduates ...................................................................................................... 22 Figure 8: Breakdown of ICT and non-ICT courses .............................................................................. 23 Figure 9 : Annual number of ICT graduates produced ......................................................................... 24 Figure 10 : Language Proficiency Graduates ........................................................................................ 26 Figure 11 : Shortage of talents .............................................................................................................. 29 Figure 12 : ICT Job Outlook ................................................................................................................. 30 Figure 13 : Mismatch of supply and demand ........................................................................................ 30 Figure 14: Frequency of ICT curriculum review by IHL's ................................................................... 32 Figure 15: Stakeholder interaction for curriculum review .................................................................... 33 Figure 16 : Structure of K-12 Computer Science Curriculum .............................................................. 37 Figure 17 : Generic ICT R&D Framework ........................................................................................... 40 Figure 18 : Focus areas of Strategic ICT Roadmap fitting into this generic R&D framework ............ 41 Figure 19 : National ICT R&D framework encompasses many strategic focus areas .......................... 42 Figure 20 : ICT Professional Development ......................................................................................... 48

TASKFORCE Page 7 1 Executive Summary Malaysia had as long ago as the mid-1990s identified ICT as a key economic driver in her effort to shift to a knowledge-based economy and achieve the vision of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020. The most significant and ambitious is the 1996 launch of the national ICT initiative, the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) which has brought considerable success in creating jobs, spawning many successful ICT companies, generating exports and putting Malaysia on the map as one of the world’s top destinations for ICT investment. However, these successes breed its own set of challenges, and coupled with the fast changing and competitive dynamics of the ICT landscape, the factors that have helped Malaysia succeed are no longer sufficient to propel Malaysia to the level of growth needed to achieve vision 2020. Chief among the challenges is the insufficient supply of skilled ICT human resource to meet the needs of the industry and economy at large. The lack of in-depth technical knowledge and soft skills has led to low employability. This was further compounded by the unfortunate perception portrayed by the media on this matter thus discouraging a large number of students who would have otherwise pursued ICT studies as their first choice. The situation is now critical as the country’s output of ICT graduates in terms of quantity and quality is woefully inadequate and threatens the success of the New Economic Model (NEM) that was launched by the Prime Minister in March 2010 to transform Malaysia into a high income economy by 2020. The NEM stresses economic development through productivity and innovation – features of advanced economies such as Singapore, South Korea, US and Finland - that make extensive use ICT. Malaysia must accelerate the development of its ICT talent pool if it is to achieve its aim of making the quantum leap to a developed high income nation status. What is required now is an integrated approach that will address the many issues and challenges that face the human capital in the ICT sector in Malaysia. This proposed ICT Human Capital Development Framework sets out a clear and compelling vision and outlines the principles and policy measures that are needed to ensure Malaysia has access to such a workforce. The Vision : To secure Malaysia’s supply of world-class ICT professionals who will support the nation’s ambitions to be a net producer of competitive ICT-based solutions for the global market, and facilitate the higher adoption of ICT in private and public sectors. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Chapter 1

TASKFORCE Page 8 The Goals : 1. To nurture quality minds who will contribute towards our country’s goal of becoming a high- income developed nation with significant standing in the global economy. 2. To inculcate strong research and development (R&D), commercialisation and professional culture within a dynamic, efficient, and effective ICT workforce. 3. As input, to produce ICT graduates who are consistently relevant to current and future industries thereby ensuring a long career shelf life. 4. To increase the commercialisation of quality ICT applications for the global market in niche areas. 5. To increase the value of the ICT profession so that it will be an attractive and sustainable career option. The framework will focus on three strategic thrusts, within which several policy measures are recommended, although these are not yet exhaustive at this stage. Strategic Thrust Recommended Policy ST1: Raise workforce competencies  Strengthen ICT curriculum with demand-driven approach  Strengthen ICT foundation in Malaysia’s education system  Expand enrolment in ICT ST2: Build greater R&D and innovative capacity  Channel R&D and Commersialisation towards strategic focus areas  Establish a boutique ICT university  Increase tri-partite collaboration in Research, Development and Commercialisation ST3: Institutionalise professional recognition and standards  Form a national ICT professional body  Promote professional development of practitioners  Re-brand and promote ICT as career of choice

TASKFORCE Page 9 The strategic thrusts and actions need to be detailed into an implementation plan and must be executed with a focus to achieve measurable outcomes in the next 10 years. The following is the initial list of suggested outcomes:  A secure supply of qualified ICT professionals  Meeting the goals of RMK-10  Matching of ICT skills supply and demand on a sustained basis  ICT sector contributes 20% to GDP  Sustained improvement in productivity and GDP growth In conclusion, the National ICT Human Resource Taskforce fully recognises that several of the policy recommendations and measures to improve the quality and employability of our ICT graduates are either being planned or have been initiated by the Government and stakeholders through other committees and forums. The Taskforce’s recommendations in this framework aim to provide the anchor point and clarity on the most important issues and their proposed solutions. Subsequently, this framework needs to be developed into a roadmap with an implementation plan and the identification of corresponding, responsible organizations to drive the programs. The following policy proposals that are more comprehensive including implementation plans have been or are being developed to cover the following strategic thrusts: - Improving ICT curriculum (MADICT, MQA) - ICT Technology and R&D Roadmap (MOSTI, MIMOS) - ICT Professionalism Roadmap (MNCC) As has been recommended in the third strategic thrust, and this cannot be emphasised enough, there is an urgent need to re-brand and market the ICT profession so that more bright students will enrol in ICT courses, and more ICT practitioners will consistently upgrade their skills to remain relevant and valuable in this field. Finally, a critical step needed is the establishment of a program monitoring mechanism that will also receive feedback to ensure that strategies and programs being implemented do achieve their goals.

TASKFORCE Page 10 2 Why do we need an ICT Human Capital Development Framework? 2.1 Background The idea to put together this ICT Human Capital Development Framework was originated by a group of academicians, ICT professionals and a few government bodies who were concerned over the direction of ICT programs in the universities as well as the quality of ICT graduates coming out of these programs and their ability to perform in the workplace. This problem of the mismatch between the supply of ICT human resources and the demand of the ICT market place has been around for many years. The lack of in-depth technical knowledge coupled with the lack of soft skills and proficiency in English language among our graduates have been the main reasons for these graduates not able to secure gainful employment. Attempts to solve these problems have been made by various stakeholders for several years now. Subsequently, a high-powered National ICT Human Resource Taskforce that comprised of carefully selected members from universities, industries and the Government sector was formed in 2008 to address these critical issues and work towards a common goal of producing world-class ICT human resources to help our country realize her national aspirations. More specifically, this common goal is to ensure that our country will have a sustainable supply of ICT human resources with numbers and strengths in the right ICT domains and places throughout the national ICT eco-system. One of the immediate tasks was ensuring that the universities are constantly engaging with all key stakeholders in keeping their respective curriculum and programs relevant with the market needs, especially along national policies and strategies such as the MSC Malaysia, the National Strategic ICT Roadmap, and more recently, the New Economic Model (NEM) and 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP). The members of the taskforce are listed in the Acknowledgement section. 2.2 Vision and Goals Following several consultations and workshops that deliberated on the issues and goals to produce the needed human capital for ICT, the National ICT human resources taskforce has adopted the following as the vision for this ICT Human Capital Development Framework WHY DO WE NEED AN ICT HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK? Chapter 2

TASKFORCE Page 11 The Vision To secure Malaysia’s supply of world-class ICT professionals who will support the nation’s ambitions to be a net producer of competitive ICT-based solutions for the global market, and facilitate the higher adoption of ICT in private and public sectors. The Goals There are five main goals:  To nurture quality minds who will contribute towards our country’s goal of becoming a high- income developed nation with significant standing in the global economy.  To inculcate strong research and development (R&D), commercialisation and professional culture within a dynamic, efficient, and effective ICT workforce.  As input, to produce ICT graduates who are consistently relevant to current and future industries thereby ensuring a long career shelf life.  To increase the commercialisation of quality ICT applications for the global market in niche areas.  To increase the value of the ICT profession so that it will be an attractive and sustainable career option. There are several points to emphasize in this set of vision and goals. Firstly, as a country, we must strive to be a producer of technology and solutions in this space. We can no longer just be a predominantly consumer market. While the national ICT initiative MSC Malaysia has spawned many companies that have regional presence and export earnings, our country has yet to produce a global ICT company with sustained innovation. Secondly, we must produce talent and solutions for not only Malaysia and the region but also for the global market. This is a tall order, but it has to be done if we are to achieve a significant standing in the competitive global economy. Last but not least, this framework sets out a path to make the ICT profession a recognized and rewarding career, similar to the profession in engineering, architecture and medicine.

TASKFORCE Page 12 3 What are the opportunities? The country had as long ago as the mid-1990s identified ICT as a key economic driver in her effort to shift to knowledge- based economy and achieve the vision of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020. A major milestone of this journey is the establishment of the National IT Council (NITC) in the early 1990’s and the launch of the National ICT initiative, the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia), beginning in 1996. While this national ICT initiative and several other strategies have achieved considerable successes in developing a sizeable ICT sector with strong export, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and ICT-enabling other economic sectors, there remain a few major impediments to our country’s journey towards a knowledge-based, developed nation. Key among these impediments is the lack of a large talent pool in science, ICT and engineering. Furthermore, as Malaysia shifts into a higher gear to achieve a high-income nation with the recent policy of the New Economic Model and its emphasis on innovation and quality human capital, the need for quality ICT human resource will be more vital and urgent than ever. Clearly, this is an opportunity for all stakeholders in this space to work better together and coordinate their efforts and programs to increase the pool of ICT talent. The first step in this effort within this ICT Human Capital Development framework is to take stock of the various national policies and ICT strategies and then ensure that these policies and strategies are aligned and reinforced to achieve common goals. The second step is to identify and understand what and where the demands are for ICT skills. 3.1 Aligning with and supporting National Transformation As pronounced in early 2010, Malaysia acknowledge that it is trapped in the middle-income level and risks further stagnation and thus will not be able to attain the vision 2020 if it does not shift into higher gear to move the economy up the value chain. The Government has crafted a National Transformation blueprint to move the country towards its next stage of development that is based on four key pillars as outlined in the figure below. WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES? Chapter 3

TASKFORCE Page 13 Figure 1 : National Transformation Blueprint1 The first pillar is embodied in the principles of 1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now. These principles are meant to unite all Malaysians who collectively represent the key stakeholders of the Government. The second pillar is the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) that will deliver the outcomes defined under the National Key Result Areas (NKRAs). The third critical pillar will be the New Economic Model (NEM) resulting from an ambitious Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) meant to transform Malaysia by 2020 into a developed and competitive economy whose people enjoy a high quality of life and high level of income from growth that is both inclusive and sustainable. The fourth pillar is the 10th Malaysia Plan 2011-2015 (10MP) which will represent the first policy operationalisation of both the Government and economic transformation programmes. The New economic Model and the 10th Malaysia Plan are highlighted below. 3.1.1 New Economic Model (NEM) The New Economic Model that was announced in March 2010 is the re-structuring of Malaysia’s economic policies to enable the country to become a high income and advanced nation by 2020. The NEM is set to push Malaysia out of the ‘middle income trap’ and address persistent socio-economic disparities with a different approach from the past. It has 3 broad goals that must be attained together: high income, inclusiveness and sustainability. The goals and outcomes of the NEM will be 1 Source: New Economic Model

TASKFORCE Page 14 achieved by the implementation of bold policy measures across 8 Strategic Response Initiatives (SRI’s) 1. Re-energizing the private sector 2. Developing quality workforce and reducing dependency on foreign labour 3. Creating a competitive domestic economy 4. Strengthening of the public sector 5. Transparent and market friendly affirmative action 6. Building the knowledge base infrastructure 7. Enhancing the sources of growth 8. Ensuring sustainability of growth, The second SRI above emphasises the development of highly skilled human resource. Within this SRI, several policy measures with strong linkages to the focus of this Human Capital development framework are proposed:  Review the education system – shift educational approach from ‘rote learning’ to ‘creative and critical thinking’  Increase emphasis on reintroducing technical and vocational training colleges  Identify and nurture talent through a demand-driven process  Improve autonomy and accountability of educational institutions  Encourage R&D collaboration between institutes of higher learning and industry  Enhance English language proficiency  Deliver high quality education, within reach of all localities 3.1.2 10th Malaysia Plan The 10th Malaysia plan (10MP) released in June 2010 by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, is the blueprint that provides economic development policy directions, strategies and programs to chart Malaysia’ growth for the period 2010 to 2015. The 10MP is one of the two long-term plans before the year 2020 in which Malaysia aims to achieve a high income, developed nation status and raise the standards of living for all Malaysians. This plan is best viewed as the operationalisation of the economic transformation program to achieve the goals of the NEM.

TASKFORCE Page 15 Figure 2 : Strategic Directions for 10th Malaysia Plan2 As highlighted in the figure above, creative and innovative human capital with 21st century skills is critical to achieve the goal of attaining high income advanced economy. This demand for quality human capital is emphasised by the Prime Minster in his foreword of the 10MP: “For Malaysia to be a high-income nation, we must be able to compete on a regional and global stage. This requires redoubling our effort to attract investment, drive productivity and innovation. The foundation of any productive high-income economy lies in a globally competitive, creative and innovative workforce. To achieve this, an integrated approach to nurturing, attracting and retaining first-world talent base will be implemented” The economic transformation that is now premised on innovation and productivity-led growth will focus on 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs): 1. Oil and gas 2. Palm oil and related-products 3. Financial services 4. Wholesale and retail 5. Tourism 6. Information and Communications Technology 7. Education 8. Electrical and electronic 9. Business services 2 Source: Economic Planning Unit

TASKFORCE Page 16 10. Private healthcare 11. Agriculture 12. Greater Kuala Lumpur Of great relevance to this framework is that ICT is one of the targeted NKEAs, and it is also accepted as the important enabler for other NKEAs, as it would help make those sectors more efficient, productive and competitive. Also, the strategies to nurture, attract and retain talent are clearly spelled out in the 10MP. 2 strategies that are very relevant are the setting up of the Talent Corporation under the PM's Department in 2011 to source global top talent including among Malaysian Diaspora, and the development of the National Talent Blueprint by 2011 to identify the talent needs of priority economic sectors. Therefore, this ICT Human Resource Development framework can and should serve as the basis to identify the HR needs of strategic areas for ICT. 3.2 Talent to implement National ICT strategies As a national policy since the mid 1990’s, ICT is an important sector and enabler for Malaysia’s economic development, instrumental for Malaysia to achieve the vision of becoming a developed, knowledge-based economy by 2020. Such is the priority given to ICT that Malaysia has several inter- related national ICT strategies and initiatives. Three national plans have been formulated and implemented to address various issues and opportunities in ICT, ranging from infrastructure to futuristic applications. The three plans are: 1. MyICMS 886 by Ministry of Energy Water and Communication (MEWC) in 2005. 2. Strategic ICT Roadmap for Malaysia by MOSTI in 2007 3. MSC Malaysia 2.0 by MDeC, which will cover the year 2010-2020 to replace the MSC Malaysia phase 2 strategy (2003-2010) 3.2.1 MyICMS886 strategy This strategy launched 8 service areas that in turn were to catalyse and promote the development of 8 essential infrastructures – both hard and soft. These services and infrastructures were aimed at

TASKFORCE Page 17 generating growth in 6 areas including content development for education, games and entertainment. The current service roll-out of High Speed Broadband by a few operators in Malaysia is a direct realization of the MyICMS886 plan. The following figure lists the 8 services, 8 infrastructures and 6 growth areas. Figure 3 : MyICMS886 strategy 3.2.2 National ICT Roadmap This strategy calls for Malaysia to build the competencies, rationalize institutional arrangements, and monitor development using the signposts-and-vision areas method in order for Malaysia to be a global leader in 3 Technology Focus Areas (TFA’s) and intensify Malaysia’s transformation to a knowledge-based economy. The 3 TFA’s are Wireless Sensor Networks, Predictive Analytics and 3D Internet. A recurring theme of this strategic roadmap is the need to develop talent and competencies in these 3 focus areas. Another strong emphasis is the fostering 3-way partnership between the government, industry and academia to coordinate and focus the research, development and commercialization efforts in these technologies. The main strategies of this roadmap are summarized in the following figure.

TASKFORCE Page 18 Figure 4 : Technology Focus Area 3 3.2.3 MSC Malaysia 2.0 (2010-2020) MSC Malaysia has a 3-phase development plan that begun in 1996 up to the year 2020. Each phase has its own strategy. This third and final part of the 3-phase strategy of MSC Malaysia aims to continue building the ICT sector through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Domestic Direct investment (DDI). However, the additional thrust is now for the ICT solutions, especially those developed by MSC Malaysia status companies, to be widely used in the other economic sectors of Malaysia to make them more productive and competitive. The third thrust of MSC Malaysia 2.0 is for ICT to directly improve the quality of life for the society at large. While the strategy in phase 2 (2003- 2010) has spawned a few MSC Malaysia status companies to become leading companies in selected regional markets (e.g Green Packet, Redtone, Iris Corporation, and Les Copaque to name a few), there is now a concerted effort to push for many more MSC Malaysia solutions to succeed in the global market. The ICT clusters being targeted in this phase are Software Solutions, ICT-enabled services especially Shared Services Outsourcing (SSO), and creative content. The aim has always been and will continue to be that more Malaysian solutions attain international success. The MSC Malaysia 2.0 strategic framework is encapsulated in the following figure. 3 Source: National ICT Roadmap

TASKFORCE Page 19 Figure 5 MSC 2.0 strategic framework To ensure that these goals are met, MDeC has introduced and carried out many ICT-enabled initiatives and capability-development programs. The capability development programs are to equip the ICT and knowledge workers of MSC Malaysia status companies with industry-needed skills up to international certification. Examples of this include the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, software testing and quality assurance, and IT Service standards. MDeC collaborates with the relevant government agencies and Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL’s) to develop and implement short-term and long-term programs to capacity and capabilities of knowledge workers in the MSC. 3.3 Demand for ICT talent expected to grow It is clear from the national policies and strategies outlined above that ICT sector development and ICT as a tool for development will continue to remain a national priority for this decade. Even after the global recession of 2008-2009, ICT investment continues to grow world-wide. According to a market research firm IDC (source: IDC directions 2009), the total Malaysia ICT market including Telecommunications and consumer ICT products was worth USD 4.6 Billion in 2006 and this grew to USD5.7B in 2008. This market is forecasted to grow to USD 8.1B in 2013, after taking into account the many initiatives especially the implementation of the High Speed Broadband network that started in 2009.

TASKFORCE Page 20 Post the global recession in 2008-2009, it is clear that the ICT market is expected to grow at rates higher than Malaysia’s GDP growth rate of 6% for many years to come. With this growth comes the demand for more human resource with industry-relevant ICT skills. Already, there is an increased demand for ICT talent especially in computer science and engineering. A recent study by MDeC and carried out by Frost & Sullivan shows that demand for ICT professionals is expected to grow from 244,643 workers to 293,703 by 2012, representing a 9.6 % growth rate. This is shown in the figure below. An important point to note is that 41% of this demand is for software development skills, followed by networking and security skills at 21%. Figure 6 : ICT Demand projection and skill level4 Another study by PIKOM forecasts that the ICT industry will employ 497,000 workers in 2010. In 2012, the Shared Service and Outsourcing (SSO) sector of the industry is forecasted to employ 300,000 workers. 4 Source: MDeC, Frost and Sullivan study 2009

TASKFORCE Page 21 It is very important to stress that the present and potential demand for ICT skills must not be confined to Malaysia alone, because it is a known fact that ICT is growing significantly in Asia Pacific, especially in China, India, Korea, Philippines and Indonesia. Hence, the demand for ICT skills by these countries presents significant opportunities to export not only ICT solutions but more so the services and skills that go with these solutions. Also, the web and internet technologies have made most ICT based jobs location independent. For instance, a software developer in Malaysia could be working for a British Multi-National company serving its customers in China. With global demand for ICT skills remaining high, and the big push by our government to turn Malaysia into a high-income country by focusing on productivity and innovation, this means that a fresh approach is needed to ensure that the nation’s supply of ICT talent is top-notch and caters for the current and future needs of industries and economic sectors. As such, the vision, goals and recommendations of this ICT Human Capital Development Framework are timely to support and in many cases re-enforce the new economic policies and strategies of Malaysia to achieve the high-income developed nation status.

TASKFORCE Page 22 4 What are the issues and root causes? The ICT sector has for many years grappled with the several main challenges concerning the quality and employability of ICT graduates coming out of our country’s Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL’s). These challenges are the decline in number of qualified graduates, the short shelf life of ICT professionals in the workplace due to the fast and dynamic pace of the ICT sector, and the mismatch of ICT human resource supply with the demand. This section elaborates these challenges and their contributing factors. 4.1 Gradual decline in the number of ICT graduates During most of the 1990’s up to the year 2001, there have been a healthy number of graduates in ICT. This was attributed to the Government’s policy emphasis on ICT especially the launch of MSC Malaysia and its Flagship Applications in 1996. This was also a result of the liberalisation of the higher education sector where many universities, especially by the private sector, were established and the majority of them offered various types of ICT degree or diploma programs. However, since 2002, there has been a drastic fall in enrolments and graduates in ICT, as highlighted from the following statistics from the Ministry of Education. Figure 7: Decline in ICT Graduates5 5 Source: Frost & Sullivan study, 2009 WHAT ARE THE ISSUES AND ROOT CAUSES? Chapter 4

TASKFORCE Page 23 As the figure above shows, there were over 119,000 students enrolling in ICT courses in 2002. By 2007, that figure fell to below 80,000. In 2002, over 53,000 ICT graduates were produced, but by 2007, that figure had dropped to 19,500. According to a recent study commissioned by MDeC and undertaken by Frost & Sullivan, only 10.5 % of students in Malaysian institutions of higher learning (IHL) were enrolled in ICT courses and the number was staggeringly low compared to competitor countries. Figure 8: Breakdown of ICT and non-ICT courses6 Another study that was done shows how far Malaysia is lagging behind in terms of producing the type of advanced ICT graduates that are needed for an innovation-led economy. India and the United States, for example, graduate 75,000 and 52,900 computer scientists respectively each year. China, which currently brings 50,000 new ICT workers into the world every year, could eventually provide 200,000 computer science graduates annually, according to Marty McCaffrey, executive director of Software Outsourcing Research. 6 Source: MDeC, Frost & Sullivan study 2009, OECD education at a glance WMD world competitiveness report 2010

TASKFORCE Page 24 Figure 9 : Annual number of ICT graduates produced7 In contrast, Malaysia produces about 15,000 to 10,000 graduates with ICT-related degrees of which only 2,400 are computer science graduates. 4.1.1 Contributing factors for decline of ICT enrolment Several factors are known to contribute to the declining popularity of ICT courses in IHL and hence the decline in ICT enrolment: a. Perception that ICT is not a promising career-. After the national euphoria for ICT during the 1990’s up to the early part of this 21st century, and certainly with the disillusionment resulting from the “dotcom bubble burst” in 2000, ICT is no longer seen as the high growth sector it once was. This issue was further compounded by the media’s portrayal several years ago that degrees in computing will not lead to employability in well paying jobs. A consequence of this is that the cream of the prospective graduates are gravitating towards other disciplines such as engineering, accountancy, and business courses, leaving mostly the average performing students opting for ICT. b. Impression about the use of Mathematics in ICT - The widespread impression amongst students is that ICT courses need extraordinary proficiency in Mathematics. This is certainly not the case as only Computer Science and Computer engineering courses have some emphasis on strong 7 Source: MDeC, Frost & Sullivan study 2009, OECD education at a glance WMD world competitiveness report 2010

TASKFORCE Page 25 Mathematics. Nevertheless, this misconception has led to confusion amongst students and may have discouraged them from choosing ICT courses. c. Uninformed high school counsellors – Many students based their decision on courses to pursue after consulting their career counsellors in school. Unfortunately, the majority of high school counsellors are not fully aware of the trends, opportunities and career prospects in ICT. Obviously, they are not in a position to adequately promote ICT as a good career to students. Related to this is the lack of proper exposure of students to ICT at schools, which hampers their understanding of ICT as a field of study and as a career option. d. No formal professional recognition for ICT- Another contributing factor is partly due to the fact that ICT is not a professionally recognized discipline. Without such recognition, ICT lacks the prestige factor that attracts the best and brightest students to other professions such as accountancy, engineering, architecture and medicine. 4.2 Short shelf life of ICT talent in Malaysia Those working in the ICT field always face the constant challenge of remaining relevant. The fast pace of technology means workers risk becoming obsolete unless they are constantly trained and their skills upgraded in the relevant fields. This issue is also very dependent on the innovative capacity of the organizations that these professionals find themselves in. It is public knowledge that the majority of Malaysian organizations and businesses, especially the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) that as a group provide the largest employment for our graduates, are not investing enough in ICT (Note that SME’s in Malaysia account for 35% of GDP, 57% of total employment, and 20% of exports). Obviously, upward mobility for ICT professionals are very limited, and in parallel, relevant and timely training in ICT that are properly planned and managed are the exception rather than the norm in these organizations. This situation leads to many ICT professionals moving on to management, or into the ICT end user environment, or to other business functions midway in their careers. As a result, only a small number of the ICT workers become specialists. Again, a contributing factor for this issue is the lack of a professional body that governs the quality standard for the profession and promote life-long learning within the career. This matter is discussed further in a subsequent sub-chapter.

TASKFORCE Page 26 Additionally, the lack of English proficiency amongst graduates as highlighted in the following chart makes it more difficult for them to engage in life-long learning and constant upgrading given that most educational and ICT materials are written in English. Figure 10 : Language Proficiency Graduates8 Other than that, many other factors may lead to threats of our short shelf life of ICT talents in Malaysia. Some of them are elaborated in the following sub chapters. 4.3 Predominant consumer culture High-income nations, such as South Korea, Japan, Switzerland, US and Australia, are able to generate high levels of wealth due to the ability to create valuable intellectual property that are marketable worldwide. For Malaysia to join the league of high-income countries, it needs to establish a pipeline of talents that can innovate and develop high value intellectual property based products. As it stands, the country is mostly a consumer of technology products and not yet a significant producer. While the MSC Malaysia national initiative has spawned several Malaysian companies with their own technology and software that are exported, the indicators suggest that this is insufficient. To date, there are no ICT companies in Malaysia that has become a global corporation with recognizable brands like those from Korea, Taiwan, India and Singapore. 8 Source : MOHE 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% SPM BM SPM English TOEFL 34.4 11.4 13.7 62 50.2 49.3 3.6 38.4 37 Distinction

TASKFORCE Page 27 In terms of global patents, Malaysia also compares unfavourably. Malaysia is currently ranked only 30th in terms of global patent filings with just 218 patents filed in 2009. This figure is less than many leading corporations such as Japan’s consumer electronics corporation Panasonic that filed 1,891 patents in 2009, China’s telecommunication corporation Huawei, which filed 1,847, and Netherlands’ Philips, which filed 1,295 global patents. All this implies that the majority of Malaysia’s companies and research institutions are not aggressively investing in research and development. 4.4 Lack of Professional Body for ICT workforce The lack of a professional body to define and monitor standards has led to confusion as to what anICT career is and how it is made up of various disciplines, each with its unique set of attributes and opportunities for development. Without this governing body, the ICT profession does not have a single and proper advocate to chart out the various career development paths for ICT practitioners and articulate industry issues to the public and private sectors. This issue also leads to the profession not being seen as serious or as challenging as that of engineering or similar disciplines. Recall that this matter has also contributed to the declining popularity and enrolment in ICT degree programs in universities since 2002. This should not be the case in this era when ICT professionals are heavily relied upon to conceive, design, develop, implement and support numerous mission-critical applications in banking, telecommunications, healthcare, transport, manufacturing and numerous service sectors. As more of our globalized economy and quality of life are dependent on these mission-critical systems enabled by ICT, the public and relevant authorities would be more assured if the ICT profession is governed by a well-defined code of practice. This absence of a professional body to govern and advice on the latest developments affecting the ICT profession may also have led to the short shelf life for ICT workers and graduates in Malaysia. While Malaysia has PIKOM as the association representing the ICT companies, there is now a critical need for a body to represent and promote the ICT profession.

TASKFORCE Page 28 4.5 Heavy focus on middle income activities The nation is not currently focused adequately on preparing for the future high value niche areas where Malaysia has a chance to stake out a leading position. The majority of Malaysian ICT workers are currently focused on the lower to middle end of the value chain such as end user activities, data centre and call centre operations, some software development, basic 3D animation, and customization and support for packaged software from foreign Multi-National Companies (MNCs). Higher-end activities such as the creation of world class software packages and services, 3D animation movies such as those created by Pixar and DreamWorks studios in the US, hit games and hard core computing such as database tuning for millions of users is not currently being done. To be fair, there have been a few initiatives and policy statements in recent years urging organizations and businesses to use more ICT in higher value-added work and as a competitive strategy. Such initiatives include the national ICT strategic roadmap and ICT planning and cluster development initiatives by many state governments. However, these efforts are still fragmented and need to be coordinated more effectively. 4.6 Regional competition Malaysia is not alone in wanting to advance its economy and knowledge capacity. Other countries are becoming increasingly competitive and have certain advantages over Malaysia, including a larger population base. As has been highlighted in the previous section, many countries in Asia Pacific will see significant growth in ICT investment in this and the next decade, and with this growth comes the huge demand for highly-skilled ICT professionals. While countries like India are already well known for their formidable ICT industry, less well known is that neighbours like Vietnam and Indonesia are aggressively pushing ICT as one of the main pillars for their economic development. This phenomenon raises the potential for a damaging talent drain as countries like Singapore and Australia look to Malaysian talent to fill their own gaps in supply.

TASKFORCE Page 29 4.7 Mismatch of supply and demand of ICT skills There is a growing mismatch between current supply and demand of industry relevant knowledge workers in the ICT field in Malaysia. Whilst the number of graduates in the broadly defined ICT field is substantial, a huge majority does not meet the demand by industry for qualified Knowledge workers in terms of quality and industry relevance. From the current supply of about 20,000 ICT graduates per annum, only a mere 10-15% are deemed fit for employment. Although this problem occurs in practically all countries including India, this percentage is distressingly low and merits immediate action. Another important point to note is that this talent shortage occurs in all areas of the ICT job spectrum, with the biggest shortage found in software engineering, software programming, networking and database, as highlighted in the following chart. Figure 11 : Shortage of talents9 This issue is happening when ICT specialists are among the most sought after jobs by employers in Malaysia, according to a study by PIKOM, KPMG and Jobstreet (see table below). 9 Source: Frost & Sullivan study, 2009

TASKFORCE Page 30 ICT Job Outlook (PIKOM/ KPMG/ Jobstreet – March 2010) • Agriculture / Plantations / Aquaculture • Automotive / Heavy Industry / Machinery • Banking Institutions • Chemical industries • Construction / Building, including Civil Engineering • Consulting , both Business and Technical • Private Education • Electrical & Electronics Sector • Financial Services / Securities / Insurance / • Hotel / Restaurant / Food Services • Manufacturing • Oil / Gas/ Petroleum industries • Printing / Publishing • Property / Real Estate • Technology / Aerospace / Bio-technology • Semiconductor / Wafer Fabrication • Services • Telecommunication • Textiles / Garment • Transport / Storage/ Freight / Shipping • Utilities • Wholesale / Retail/ Trading • Call Centre / ICT- Enabled Services • Computer / ICT (Hardware) • Computer / ICT (Software)  Junior ICT Executive – less than 4 years of experience including fresh entrants into the job markets;  Senior ICT Executive – 5 or more years of working experience;  Middle ICT Manager – as declared by the job seekers;  Senior ICT Manager – as declared by the job seekers TOP 10 SPECIALISATIONS EMPLOYERS SEEK 1) Marketing & Business Development 2) Sales/Marketing (Merchandising) 3) Customer Service 4) Computer & IT (Software) 5) Engineering (Mechanical) 6) Human Resources 7) Sales/Marketing (Technical) 8) General/Cost Accounting 9) Top Management 10) Clerical/General Administration Figure 12 : ICT Job Outlook10 This mismatch is going to get more severe as the ICT sector is growing fast in line with national and regional economic recovery. The following chart highlights the anticipated demand that cannot be matched rising from 335 workers in 2009 to 19,668 workers. This chart also indicates that the unmatched demand is not due to lack of supply but the lack of the right skills. Figure 13 : Mismatch of supply and demand11 10 Source: PIKOM/ KPMG/ Jobstreet

TASKFORCE Page 31 The issues are noted by the industry players. According to the national ICT industry association PIKOM, there is a need to address a shortfall of 40,000 knowledge workers in the ICT industry by 2012. Graduates with sound principles and foundation in Computer Science are badly needed to address knowledge skills gap. 4.8 The root causes for decline in quality ICT HR Our country is thus faced with 2 main challenges in ICT human resources right at a time when it is embarking on a transformation to a new economic model that requires innovation, creativity and productivity of its workforce: the overall decline in enrolment and graduates in ICT, and for those who actually graduate, their lack of skills and competencies as demanded by industry. What are the roots causes for this decline? Studies and consultations among the stakeholders have identified the following: 1. Lack of quality control and standardisation of ICT curriculum during the heady growth of ICT and the liberalisation of higher education sector in the mid 1990’s. During this period, the number of new IHLs mushroomed. Almost all IHLs offered ICT-related diploma and degree programs with different names and focus areas i.e. Bachelor of Computer Science, Bachelor of Information Technology, Bachelor of Information Systems, to name a few. It can be safely stated that many of these programs provide only general ICT knowledge and skill development. When the graduates enter the workforce, many found that their skills and knowledge are not adequate to fulfil their job functions. Employers from the industry have been lamenting this issue for years. Coupled with other factors such as the “dotcom bubble burst” in 2000 and its aftermath, and the media’s portrayal of this ‘employability’ issue, many of the best students then opted for other courses, leaving mostly the average performing students opting for ICT. All these lead to the vicious cycle of the mismatch that we have today. 2. The lack of strong foundation in problem-solving, communication, critical thinking, proactive and practical – these are often called the ‘soft skills’ - in ICT graduates can be attributed to 2 factors. One is the result of Malaysia’s education system that emphasized too much on exams and rote-learning. The second factor, which is not widely known to the public, is the 11 Source: MDeC / Frost & Sullivan, 2009

TASKFORCE Page 32 reduction from 4 years to 3 years of many ICT degree programs. Related to this is the absence of or reduction in credit hours for a practical stint in the industry for many of these degree programs. While the Government is embarking to revamp our education system to suit the workforce requirements of this 21st century, the IHLs need to quickly change their education strategy including how they measure successful outcome. 3. This problem of supply demand mismatch is further compounded by the very dynamic and fast-paced nature of the ICT industry. This and the above 2 factors suggest that the ICT curriculum in IHL’s need to constantly keep pace with developments in the ICT industry. Unfortunately, not many universities review their curricula frequently, as highlighted in the following chart from the “Malaysian ICT Human Capital Study” carried out by MDeC and Frost & Sullivan in 2009. The same study also indicates that there is little consultation or collaboration between IHL’s and industry for this curriculum review (see the second chart). It is no surprise then that the majority of ICT graduates do not have the relevant competencies needed by employers. Figure 14: Frequency of ICT curriculum review by IHL's

TASKFORCE Page 33 Figure 15: Stakeholder interaction for curriculum review These root causes plus the factors that have been identified to contribute to the declining ICT enrolment need to be addressed together in a holistic and coordinated manner as they have a cause and effect relationship with each other. Resolving only 1 or 2 will not bring out the systemic change required for Malaysia’s ICT education to deliver world class ICT professionals for the global market.

TASKFORCE Page 34 5 What needs to be done? As highlighted in the previous chapters, there are significant opportunities and demand in ICT, and likewise there are significant challenges and gaps with regards to the quality and competency of ICT human resources for Malaysia. The main contributing factors and root causes are known. In fact, they have been known for many years, and several policy interventions and programs have been initiated recently. But now that Malaysia is accelerating its transformation effort towards Vision 2020 via the NEM amid what will be an even more competitive environment for investment (both foreign and domestics) and talent, there is therefore an urgent need to coordinate and harmonise these efforts, and formulate and implement new strategies. The National ICT Human Resource Taskforce has identified three strategic thrusts that form the pillars of this ICT Human Capital Development framework. Within each strategic thrust, several policy measures are recommended, although these are not yet exhaustive at this stage. Strategic Thrust Recommended Policy ST1: Raise workforce competencies  Strengthen ICT curriculum with demand-driven approach  Strengthen ICT foundation in Malaysia’s education system  Expand enrolment in ICT ST2: Build greater R&D and innovative capacity  Channel R&D and Commersialisation towards strategic focus areas  Establish a boutique ICT university  Increase tri-partite collaboration in Research, Development and Commercialisation ST3: Institutionalise professional recognition and standards  Form a national ICT professional body  Promote professional development of practitioners  Re-brand and promote ICT as career of choice WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE? Chapter 5

TASKFORCE Page 35 5.1 Raise workforce competency 5.1.1 Strengthen ICT curriculum with demand-driven approach To raise the competencies of ICT workforce, among the key measures to be taken is to strengthen the ICT curriculums in schools and IHLs by incorporating frequent input from the industry. The recent proposals by MADICT (Majlis Dekan ICT) and MQA to streamline the various ICT-related degree programs into a clear grouping of focus areas and to set and enforce certain quality standards need to be implemented and monitored regularly. The proposal by MADICT suggests that the body of knowledge as recommended by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) be incorporated into university courses. ACM is the world’s oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society with 78,000 members and headquartered in New York. MADICT also recommends that a clear distinction be made between the Bachelor of Computer Science and Bachelor of Information Technology. Due to its importance, the area of software engineering also deserves its own discipline and should be offered as a Bachelor of Software Engineering. Another recommendation is to enhance ICT competency according to the standardization based on global best practices and national demands. Focus areas based on the ACM computing curricula 2001-2005 as pointed out by MADICT are:  Software Engineering  Computer Systems and Networks  Artificial Intelligence  Multimedia  Information Systems For long term development, post graduate studies and specialization will be promoted primarily in strategic focus areas identified in the national ICT R&D framework (see Figure 17). These focus areas include but are not limited to:  software development  software engineering  digital content development

TASKFORCE Page 36  information security  High Performance Computing  Multi-modal information processing  Embedded System  Knowledge management A scheme is also proposed for these postgraduates to implement the followings:  Facilitate research groups or centres in the universities to enable good graduates to join the universities,  Planning for good graduates to pursue Masters and obtain certifications. It is also recommended that lecturers be exposed to industrial practices and experiences, and there should be a structured programme for lecturers to be attached to industry. It is suggested that the minimum period of attachment be set at six months and sufficient credit or merit be given to participating lecturers in consideration for promotion in order to encourage participation. Review of ICT curriculums should be done ideally every year or at least every 2 years. The review must also be done in consultation with industry, either directly or indirectly, through organizations such as MDeC, MNCC, and PIKOM. In addition to the above longer-term programs, IHLs and industry stakeholders must also collaborate often to formulate and run programs to address short and medium term industry needs. A good case in point is the establishment of the ‘Knowledge Worker Development Institute’ (KDI) by MDeC to provide knowledge workers with the skills required by the ICT Industry, especially in Shared Services and Outsourcing (SSO) sector. A final and important point to stress is that in all the above efforts to strengthen ICT curriculum with the demand-driven approach, the reference to industry should not only be to local and current needs, but also to global and future demands, especially the more developed ones.

TASKFORCE Page 37 5.1.2 Strengthen ICT foundation in education system The introduction of basic ICT foundation in secondary schools needs to be further promoted. While there are many public schools that have adopted the Smart School model and many more have computer labs and programs, these efforts need to be expanded throughout the entire school education system. Basic computing courses should be introduced in schools and teachers need to be skilled at exciting interest amongst students in the field of computing as well as equip them with the skills for life-long learning. In the USA, K12 curriculum, the largest provider of online education was introduced to target online learning for grades K through to 12. The curriculum includes instruction, practice exercises, and assessments, as well as audio/video tutorials and links to interactive activities to make learning more motivating and engaging. Figure 16 : Structure of K-12 Computer Science Curriculum12 The structure of the K-12 Computer Science Curriculum, for example, shows that the preparation for Computer Science knowledge starts from the beginning with the basic introduction of Computer Science foundations and analysis & design. The inclusion of ICT as a foundation subject at the secondary school level will equip Malaysian students entering universities or other IHLs with the necessary knowledge and skills in problem- solving, systems analysis and computer logic/programming. These skills will enable them to learn other advanced ICT-related subjects within the 3- or 4-year programs. These foundation skills are also useful even if the students do not pursue ICT courses in their tertiary education. This policy will go a long way to widening our pool of ICT human resources. 12 Source: Final Report of the ACM K-12 Task Force Curriculum Committee

TASKFORCE Page 38 5.1.3 Expand enrolment in ICT With the ICT curriculum strengthened through regular review and adherence to quality and standards established by MQA, all public and private IHLs should expand their enrolment of ICT. (As of writing, many IHL’s intend to increase their enrolment in the next few years). However, it must be stressed that this expansion should only happen if proper planning and analysis are done in consultation with industry and relevant stakeholders so that it is demand-driven. Also, there must be adequate capacity in terms of the number of qualified lecturers, staff, and facilities to accommodate more student intake without sacrificing the quality of education. For this strategy to be effective, it is also recommended that every IHL offering ICT programs has a certain focus or specialisation. These focused areas of the IHL could either be a research focus, or software engineering, or Information systems relevant to business or others. Subsequently, IHLs need to carry out a consistent branding and promotion program to cast a wider net and get more of the top performing students to enrol in ICT. This branding should be done on a more specific basis to complement the branding and promotion of ICT as a career of choice at the national level to be done by the Ministry or agency concerned e.g. MOHE working with MDeC. 5.2 Build greater R&D and innovative capacity 5.2.1 Channel R&D and commercialisation to strategic focus areas Malaysia currently is predominantly a consumer of ICT and technology products, and this must change if we are to become a high-income nation that produces a lot more intellectual property in ICT. Educational institutions must be encouraged to inculcate a culture of research in students while the private sector must be continually encouraged and incentivised to invest in research and development of their own intellectual property that can be marketed globally. For Malaysia to increase its capability in R&D and Commercialisation, there is a need to identify niche areas of technology where Malaysia has the strong potential to excel. These niche areas have been identified in the proposed National ICT R&D Framework that was deliberated on during the stakeholders’ workshop in May 2010, and more recently during consultation with MIMOS and MOSTI. This generic ICT R&D framework is an extension of planning done via the National

TASKFORCE Page 39 Information Technology Council (NITC) in the past as well as the National Strategic ICT Roadmap developed by MOSTI in 2007. The generic ICT R&D framework has taken a comprehensive and holistic view of current development while duly taking into consideration Malaysia’s resources and strengths. Figures 17 , 18 and 19 depict this generic ICT R&D Framework that emphasizes the grouping of the R&D and Commercialisation activities into strategic focus areas. R&D and commercialisation efforts especially in the public IHLs and research institutions must be channelled to the focus areas indentified in this ICT R&D framework so as to optimise our country’s resources while aiming for significant impact. The areas of greatest impact will now go beyond areas mentioned in the previous roadmaps such as smart agriculture, logistic systems, financial services, halal and manufacturing sectors. It will need to consider the protection of our sovereignty in the light of emerging global developments, e.g. the unbridled data control of data mining giants, i.e. large search engines. There is also an impending need to catalyse the development of home-grown platforms, systems and contents. The ability to have control over technology is hereby seen as mandatory to steer the direction of the nation to become a high-income producer nation. Other areas of greatest impact will also include sovereignty protection areas such as crime and catastrophe prevention, cyber security, local indigenous systems, local content such as preservation of culture and heritage, home-grown architecture platform, open source systems development and embedded systems crafting and related application development. To create a robust and sustainable ICT sector, the country needs a complete ecosystem, which would translate into actionable programs in the areas of education, R&D and commercialisation, infrastructure and industry development. The proposed generic computing roadmap presents an overview of areas for the nation to capitalise on while also fully taking advantage of the R&D capacity of current research institutions. It is only appropriate that Malaysia takes on the challenge of harnessing and building upon the capacities and expertise that are already available in the country. Considerable amount of expertise is available in network technologies (leading to grid and cloud computing), security system (leading to cyber security) and in multimodal data analysis and processing, artificial intelligence (leading to Discovery Informatics and Semantic Computing) among many other areas.

TASKFORCE Page 40 Knowledge Management Organization Identification Creation Acquisition Dissemination Adaptation Application Organization Identification Creation Acquisition Dissemination Adaptation Application Knowledge/ Ontology Multimedia Raw Data Multimedia Knowledge Representation Knowledge Base Frameworks Meaning (e.g. Discourse, Lexicontology analysis) Features (e.g. Phrasal & Dependency analysis) Generic AI Processors Database/XML Multimedia Knowledge Extraction/ Generation Text Speech Image Music Audio Biosignal Graphics/Animation Data/Text Mining Clustering/ Classification Multimedia Data Indexing Focused Information Retrieval Search Pattern Identification Biometrics Distributed computing Parallel computing Grid computing High Performance Computing Multimedia computing Universal Multimedia Filter Data Compression Multimedia Communication Data Security Multimedia Network protocol Signal processing Robotic Navigation Video/Stereo Vision Informatics Surveillance Prediction Scheduling Optimization Creative Multimedia Organization Identification Creation Acquisition Dissemination Adaptation Application Medium Content User Generic National ICT R&D Framework Environment Domain specific Applications Healthcare Language Finance Law Robotics Smart office Smart Home Smart Meeting Room Computer Aided Translation 3D Games Culture & Heritage Education 3D Film/Movie Multilingual Translation Question Answering Multimodal Visualizer Figure 17 : Generic ICT R&D Framework13 The framework proposed addresses the nurturing of a competent professional workforce necessary to be a producer nation in cutting edge ICT technologies. Underlying the goal statement is the aspiration to provide a proper environment to boost the country’s economic activities within the knowledge economy, which will contribute to national wealth creation from ICT competitiveness. One aspect would be by way of the development infrastructures/utilities, in particular via accessibility to multimedia services under different and varying network conditions, high performance computing platforms, in a secure mode, using a diverse range of terminal equipment capabilities, serve dissimilar user needs, preferences and usage environment conditions. Another aspect would be by way of provision of info-structures, in particular via tools, technologies and methodologies to support knowledge management (ranging from acquisition, through organisation to application) as well as develop creative content with core competency in providing various media 13 Source: ICT Technology & R&D framework (MOSTI)

TASKFORCE Page 41 content, access, services and products. Above all, the third aspect is through the management of society needs, in particular towards the commercialisation of all products and services resulting from the above. It is to be noted that the proposed National ICT R&D framework in Figure 17 is generic enough to be able to include other roadmaps discussed in section 3.2, for example. Figure 18 below shows how the initial National ICT roadmap that was done in 2007 fits into this generic framework, while Figure 19 highlights how this generic ICT R&D framework encompasses other strategic focus areas, each of which will have its respective roadmap . This generic ICT R&D framework also plans out the development of modules and toolkits to be used or assembled to produce a wide range of applications in many industries – a basic necessity for Malaysia to be a producer of ICT software and applications. Figure 18 : Focus areas of Strategic ICT Roadmap fitting into this generic R&D framework14 The generic ICT R&D framework as illustrated above highlights an array of technologies that serve as the basis for the development of the following capabilities: 14 Source: Strategic ICT Roadmap (MOSTI) – see section 3.2

TASKFORCE Page 42 1. The need for powerful computational resources aligned with the ability to manage knowledge 2. Home-grown platforms for the construction of a wide-range of potential application 3. A complete ecosystem of component systems and core technologies that make up the ICT technological competence layers 4. A comprehensive coverage of cross-section of technologies that covers infrastructure to applications. 5. R&D and commercialisation for these niche areas, which will in future lead to niche teaching learning products such as the development of technology toolkits. Figure 19 : National ICT R&D framework encompasses many strategic focus areas Finally, the ICT R&D framework is aided by a set of specific, easily recognizable signposts to indicate significant events that will influence the possibility for an envisioned future occurrence. These actionable signposts are important stepping-stones in enhancing the likelihood of raising the country’s regional presence and global competitiveness in key economic sectors.

TASKFORCE Page 43 The signposts are:  Establish a human resource directory of skills and competencies in line with the roadmap  Building national competence in key areas identified in the roadmap for the realization of the goals mentioned above.  Streamline funding agencies to ensure that gaps in competencies are addressed. 5.2.2 Establish a Boutique ICT University The proposal is to establish a specialised university for the next generation of ICT professionals and knowledge workers necessary to support the nation’s aspiration to be a producer nation in ICT, particularly in software technologies and applications. The university’s core businesses will be research, development and commercialisation (R&D&C), and the offering of academic programmes (foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate) in computer sciences, in particular in its core competencies:  Artificial Intelligence (esp. in knowledge management technology),  Software Engineering (esp. for knowledge-based and intelligent systems),  Computer Systems (esp. in high performance computing), These will be applied in certain niche domains, such as:  Business Analytics (esp. for business, finance, knowledge management),  Creative Multimedia (esp. in animation and multimedia performing arts)  Health Informatics (esp. in wellness and sports sciences)  Legal Informatics (esp. for intellectual property and international law) The university will produce graduates at all levels to be computing professionals or R&D personnel in the software industry, as well as intellectual capital in the form of innovations, products, modules and generic components for the said industry. Above all, faculty members and students will be expected at all times to be involved in the R&D&C in the said core and application domains, which will not only provide the necessary environment for the above, but will also result in the intellectual capital required for an IT producer nation

TASKFORCE Page 44 A specialised university cannot be too large in order to be effective. On the other hand, being a private institution, it has to generate sufficient funds to support itself for current needs and future expansion. The major proportion of the funds will have to be from student fees. Other forms of revenue will be from commercial projects, commercialisation of products, licensing, consultancy, and possibly franchising of academic programmes. The model for such a university is such that it will be duplicable and can be replicated in other places, including overseas. Hence the services and intellectual capital can also be exported. 5.2.3 Increase tri-partite collaboration in Research, Development & Commercialisation There is now a critical need for more collaboration in Research, Development and Commercialisation (R&D&C) in the strategic focus areas between academia, government and industry to increase the chances of success in the market place. This tri-partite arrangement (also referred to as the triple helix cluster) is a spiral model of innovation that leverages from the multiple reciprocal relationships between the industry, academia and the government in the process of knowledge capital creation and enhancement. In the past, public IHLs and research institutions tend to focus more of their research in the pure or basic research areas i.e. supply-side or technology–driven innovation. R&D and commercialisation in private sector, especially among Malaysian SMEs, were minimal; if any they were focused on seizing near-term opportunities in the market. With the call of the NEM and National Innovation Model (NIM in 2008) to be more market or demand-driven, this need for more tri-partite R&D&C collaboration has now become urgent and must be managed as a portfolio and in a concerted manner to strengthen and increase our country’s R&D&C capabilities. The National Innovation Model prescribes the following policy: The government continues to lead research in basic science (supply-side), while private sector drives market-driven innovation (demand-side). The role of Government will now emphasize risk mitigation for the private sector’s drive for market-driven innovation; (a) Government to drive basic science & research (supply-side) (b) Government and private sector to actively collaborate to drive in a purposeful way technology- driven innovation with Government mitigating risks;

TASKFORCE Page 45 (c) Private sector to drive market-driven innovation, with facilitation and support through risk mitigation from the Government (demand-side). With these innovation policies and the ICT R&D Roadmap presented earlier, it is now clear what the focus areas should be and what the respective roles are for industry, academia (especially the public research institutions), and government. In this regard, MIMOS is already performing its role as the conduit for the R&D findings in ICT to be commercialised by the private sector. Going forward, MIMOS and other public research institutions can play even greater roles and in a more coordinated manner, aided by the relevant ICT roadmap, to collaborate with more companies in the industry. This will accelerate our country’s effort to commercialise ICT products and solutions for Malaysia and the global market. It is also recommended that each tri-partite cluster establish the Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE) for its focus areas, which is chosen from National ICT roadmap. For example, there will be one HICoE for Wireless Sensor Network and another HICoE for 3D Internet. This effort needs to be coordinated and facilitated by government (through agencies like MIMOS and MDeC), while the academia and industry would actually carry out the R&D&C collaboration. One of the first steps to be taken in this effort is to identify research-intensive universities and training/teaching universities and pairing these organizations with the industry participants to collaborate in specific focus areas to meet the needs of both innovation and application. The establishment of several tri- partite collaboration and HICoEs would go a long way to address the gap in supply and demand and reduce mismatch between industry needs and universities output. Furthermore, Malaysia will then have several HICoEs that will have a good chance of churning out innovative ICT solutions and gain global recognition. 5.3 Institutionalise professional recognition and standards 5.3.1 Form a Board of Computing Professionals Malaysia To alleviate the standards, recognition and hence the value of the ICT profession, the national ICT Human Resources Taskforce fully support and recommend the formation of a national body for the ICT profession. The formation of a Board of Computing that can look after the interest of the profession is long overdue. The ICT HR Professionalism Working Group, a sub-committee of the Taskforce, has taken the initiative to propose to the Government the formation of a Board of

TASKFORCE Page 46 Computing Professionals Malaysia (BCPM). This name was chosen to reflect the ICT profession’s wide ranging scope and applications, as defined by the following: The working definition for computing, as described by Wikipedia: Computing, also known as computer science is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer technology, computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology. Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the science of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. Computing Curricula 2005 defined computing: In a general way, we can define computing to mean any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computers. Thus, computing includes designing and building hardware and software systems for a wide range of purposes; processing, structuring, and managing various kinds of information; doing scientific studies using computers; making computer systems behave intelligently; creating and using communications and entertainment media; finding and gathering information relevant to any particular purpose, and so on. The list is virtually endless, and the possibilities are vast. The BCPM would serve as a central repository of all ICT professionals in the country and be the trusted provider of professional accreditation. It would also review qualifications offered by other parties in order to serve as a guide and reference to both ICT professionals and employers when gauging which certifications are valid and relevant. Most importantly, it would raise professional standards industry-wide by developing and maintaining a code of conduct for ICT professionals. It would also have a hand in determining the scale of charges to ensure prices are reasonable, sustainable and competitive. Such a board will enhance the value of the profession, as it will require accredited members to possess minimum levels of qualification. Employers who hire professionals accredited by the computing board will then have some level of assurance of the quality they will be getting. The formation of such a board will require a new legislation. There would be various engagements of relevant ministries and organizations that will be involved in drafting the legislation for the formation of BCPM to serve the needs of the ICT professionals working in the public and private

TASKFORCE Page 47 sectors, in research, business, education, and in the user side. With such a body, ICT professionals can look forward to greater voice and support, similar to what professionals in the other disciplines are getting e.g. Bar Council for lawyers and the Institute of Chartered Accountants for the accounting profession. Taken together, the contributions of the BCPM would help enhance and regulate the supply of ICT manpower in the country and help the nation achieve the New Economic Model goals of becoming a productive high-income nation. 5.3.2 Promote professional development of practitioners The ICT domain, like many other technology domains today, are developing at a frantic pace and impacting many businesses, industries and sometimes regional economies. Graduates and professionals in ICT need to constantly keep abreast of the developments in their fields and obtain knowledge and skills to keep themselves relevant. While training and professional are done in many organizations in Malaysia, they are more often than not reactive, ad-hoc and not directly linked to the professional career path and the needs of both employee and employer. This has to change. More organizations and businesses need to be educated on the important role of ICT professionals to their respective businesses and hence the managed professional development of these ICT practitioners is one of the best ways to attract, develop and retain them. To its credit, MDeC’s programs, particularly through their Capability Development Division, Knowledge-worker Development Institute (KDI) and collaboration with industry players, have carried out numerous professional development and certification programs in the last 5 years. The results can be seen in the significant number of number of certified ICT professionals in several key areas e.g. networking, software quality and testing, project management, and process improvement. The results are also reflected by way of greater acceptance of MSC Malaysia products in Malaysia and international markets. However, these programs are targeted mostly for the MSC Malaysia status companies i.e. the supply side of the industry (with the exception of the big SSO business units of companies like DHL or HSBS that also represent the buyer side). Hence, there is a need for greater push for on-going professional development in the wider ICT sector and certainly in the user side. There has to be a comprehensive push for the private and public sectors to embrace training and professional assessments such as professional examinations,

TASKFORCE Page 48 certifications and accreditations. Some of the details of professional development path are illustrated in the figure below. Figure 20 : ICT Professional Development 15 Other steps that should be considered are:  An Action Plan needs to be established to support the Professional Development Framework, as detailed out in Appendix 3.  The roles and responsibilities for professional development by the stakeholders like MNCC, MDeC, IHL, MNC’s, GLC’s, PIKOM, SME Corp, etc must be made clearer to all concerned especially to ICT professionals, entrepreneurs and students.  Conduct regular benchmarking of competencies and remuneration packages for ICT professionals with regional and major ICT markets. This benchmark will enable the relevant stakeholders to take actions to make our ICT human resource competitive in the public and private sectors The career path of ICT professionals also need to be clarified so that prospective entrants are clear of the different professional tracks, for example the difference between system engineers, ICT consultants and technical specialists. Programs and incentives should be introduced at different levels in the ICT value chain – from education institutions to industry bodies. The following is a short list of existing programs that can be expanded and promoted, and more importantly, synergized for professional development: 15 Source: MADICT Talent roadmap presentation

TASKFORCE Page 49  Existing education in Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) – each IHL individually plan the courses and numbers based on MQA requirements; research undertaken by IHLs are based on individual requirements & targets  MOHR Program – Train & Place program for retrenched IT workers & unemployed IT graduates  Ministry of Education – Recruitment in schools IT centres or laboratories  MDeC – Clusters Program, Industry-Academic Collaboration, Knowledge Worker Development Institute, etc  MCMC, Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture – Rural Telecentre programs  MNCC currently is a recognized but non-formal voice of IT professional, where the activities are centred on knowledge sharing through conferences, workshops, and talks. Promoting, developing, and implementating more demand-driven professional development programs would certainly increase the value and shelf-life of the ICT profession in Malaysia, and more importantly reverse the decline in quality of the country’s ICT workforce. 5.3.3 Re-brand and promote ICT as career of choice With all the proposed actions and policy measures, there is now a need for a concerted effort to re- brand and promote ICT as the career of choice. The ICT field and profession need to be re-positioned as a rewarding, exciting and challenging endeavour that is at the core of the New Economic Model and as an enabler to improve the quality of life. The message that must be delivered is that there are many exciting disciplines within ICT – such as network design, software engineering, creative content development and multimedia programming – and they all cater to different learning styles and personal interests. It must also be stressed that many companies including the small companies with self-employed graduates are doing extremely well, and that the sector has all the Government support, especially incentives, funding, infrastructure and professional development programs. The main goal of the re-branding and promotion effort is to attract and retain the best and brightest of students and adults to enter the ICT field, whether on the supply or demand side. This re-branding will also address the earlier misconception that ICT is no longer a growth industry and that well- paying ICT jobs are hard to come by. Multi-channel campaigns must be conducted to reach out to parents, students, career counsellors as well as those from other disciplines who may be inclined to choose ICT as a career. The campaigns

TASKFORCE Page 50 will be delivered through outreach and roadshows, career days or job fairs, and using traditional and new media. MDeC and PIKOM working with MOHE, MOE, MOHR and later the Board of Computing Professional s Malaysia (BCPM) are the ideal stakeholders to manage and execute this re-branding program.

TASKFORCE Page 51 6 What are the expected outcomes? The strategic thrusts and actions need to be detailed into an implementation plan and must be executed with a focus to achieve measurable outcomes in the next 5 to 10 years. The following is the initial list of suggested outcomes, which will be further quantified, verified and/or changed in the next stage when the full roadmap or implementation plan is developed.  A secure supply of qualified ICT professionals - The outcome of an ICT Talent development framework will be a secure supply of qualified ICT professionals who can service the needs of a high income nation, able to adapt to changing technological trends and produce globally marketable and proprietary intellectual property.  Meeting the goals of RMK-10 - The 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) has identified ICT as one of the national key economic areas (NKEAS) as well as a need for first world talent. The ICT Talent Development Framework will help realise the goals of the 10MP by ensuring that the education system produces high quality graduates in possession of content and depth.  Matching of supply and demand - The graduates will also enter the workforce fully equipped with the necessary ICT and communication skills that employers seek. They will be able to adapt to changing technology trends for a longer shelf life and have a better work culture as well as exhibit high levels of professionalism and leadership. Malaysian ICT professionals will be industry relevant and globally competitive and can be favourably benchmarked against leading regional technology hubs. ICT will also be a career of choice for talented and competitive candidates.  Contribute 20% of GDP - The ICT industry, comprising hardware, software, services and telecommunications, made up 9 per cent of GDP in 2009. It is envisioned that ICT will be able to contribute up 20 per cent of GDP by the year 2020.  Improve productivity and GDP growth – global studies have strongly concluded that pervasive adoption of ICT across all sectors of the economy can lead to greater productivity and GDP growth as well as contribute as much as 60 per cent to the total factor productivity (TFP) growth. This should be the expected outcome once Malaysia has a large and sustainble pool of highly-skilled ICT human resource. WHAT ARE THE EXPECTED OUTCOMES? Chapter 7

TASKFORCE Page 52 7 Conclusion and the next steps The National ICT Human Resource Taskforce fully recognises that several of the policy recommendations and measures to improve the quality and employability of our ICT graduates are either being planned or have been initiated by the Government and stakeholders through other committees and forums. The Taskforce’s recommendations in this framework aim to provide the anchor point and clarity on the most important issues and their proposed solutions. It is envisioned that this ICT Human Capital Development Framework will be the umbrella framework that guides and coordinates the formulation and execution of programs and timelines proposed in this framework as well as other programs formulated by the relevant stakeholders such as MQA, MADICT, MDeC and MOSTI. In other words, this framework needs to be developed into a roadmap with an implementation plan and identified corresponding responsible organizations to drive the programs. To develop the roadmap that can be implemented, further work in the form of engaging key stakeholders, verification study and implementation planning that is national in scope needs to be conducted for selected policy or strategic recommendations. Such multi-stakeholder implementation planning is required in order to ensure that policies and programs are comprehensive and get the buy-in from other universities as well as attract industry support. This further work can be carried out in a manner that is similar to or together with the NKEA Laboratories that have been or are being carried out under the Economic Transformation Programme. The following policy proposals that are more comprehensive including implementation plans have been or are being developed to cover the following strategic thrusts: - Improving ICT curriculum (owner: MADICT, MQA) - ICT R&D Roadmap (owner: MOSTI, MIMOS) - ICT Professionalism Roadmap (owner: MNCC) As has been recommended in the third strategic thrust, and this cannot be emphasised enough, there is an urgent need to re-brand and market the ICT profession so that more bright students will enrol in ICT courses, specifically in Computer Science and Software Engineering. This re-branding effort will also make the majority of ICT professionals likely to want to remain in this field and hence CONCLUSION AND THE NEXT STEPS Chapter 7

TASKFORCE Page 53 update their knowledge and skills on a continuous basis. This marketing effort is best planned and executed in a coordinated manner by the 4 key stakeholders i.e. MOHE, MOSTI, MDeC and PIKOM. Finally, a critical step needed is the establishment of a program monitoring mechanism that will also receive feedback to ensure that strategies and programs being implemented do achieve their goals. The mechanism to receive proper feedback in a timely manner is important as the programs are mostly medium-term and long-term in nature and they have to be adjusted to meet the fast- changing needs of the ICT market place. Bridging the overall gap between demand and supply is not enough. Even if macro level demand supply balance is achieved there could be serious imbalances at the lower levels of specific skills. Moreover the demand pattern for ICT skills at the national levels is likely to change rapidly over time as the domestic markets for ICT products and services change and as the new export markets are explored and existing export markets expand. As such, a multilevel tracking of demand for and supply of ICT skills is called far. A tracking model is required, which is skill based, multilevel and dynamic. Perpetual review and monitoring is essential for continuous improvement.

TASKFORCE Page 54 Appendix 1 – Key abbreviations used in this framework ABBREVIATION DETAILS EPU Economic Planning Unit GLC Government-Linked Company HICoE Higher Institution Centre of Excellence ICT Information and Communications Technology IHL Institutions of Higher Learning JPA Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam MADICT Majlis Dekan ICT MCMC Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission MDEC Multimedia Development Corporation MNCC Malaysian National Computer Confederation MOHE Ministry of Higher Education MOHR Ministry of Human Resources MOSTI Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation MQA Malaysian Qualifications Agency MSC Multimedia Super Corridor NEM New Economic Model NIM National Innovation Model NKEAS National Key Economic Areas NSE National Standard of Employability PIKOM Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry SSO Shared Services and Outsourcing TFA Technology Focus Areas WSN Wireless Sensor Networks

TASKFORCE Page 55 Appendix 2 – Major References of Data and Analysis 1. MADICT report on ICT Curriculum Standards 2. Proposal to Enhance Quality of ICT degrees: by MQA, October 2009 3. Malaysian ICT Human Capital Study, April 2009 by MDeC / Frost & Sullivan; April 2009 4. Proposal for Malaysia’s National Standard of Employability (NSE) Program for the SSO Industry: PIKOM; February 2010 5. The New Economic Model – Part I; National Economic Action Council (NEAC), 2010 6. National Innovation Model; MOSTI 2009 7. The 10th Malaysia Plan by Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department, June 2010 8. ICT Human Resource Development in Asia and the Pacific: Current Status, Emerging Trends, Policies and Strategies by Ravi Raina, United Nations, 2007

TASKFORCE Page 56 Appendix 3 – Professionalism of ICT – Action Plan Action Plan Action Items Prog KPI 1. Professional Membership • IT professionals definition, description, classification • Membership drive plan 2. Professional Development • Market Research/Study • Career Path Model • Training Path Plan • Assessment Model • Certification Model 3. Structure • Consolidation of various IT bodies • Endorsement of MNCC as a professional body by MOSTI 4. Standards • Study on standards & best practices (SIRIM) 5. Ethics • Produce document on Ethics 6. Image Building • Promotion

TASKFORCE Page 57 Appendix 4 – Current Milestones for ICT Human Capital Framework

ICT_Human_Capital_Framework

ICT_Human_Capital_Framework

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