Transferable skills of engineering students: A study on TVET Pedagogies at Universities in Malaysia

Abstract

Nowadays, all fresh graduates should not just focus on doing well in their core areas but also should have a positive attitude as well as good transferable skills in order to get a good job. An effective pedagogy and assessment help influence the quality of the fresh graduate. However, there are still a number of students who fail to get a job due to the lack of transferable skills even though they are considered experts in their fields. Additionally, students only gain average transferable skills during the course of their studies. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the perception of transferable skills among students in the Malaysian TVET institutions. A survey was conducted and distributed to students from various Malaysian Technical Universities (MTU) which included University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), University Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM), University Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) and University Malaysia Pahang (UMP). The total number of respondents were 439. The findings of this study showed that students agreed and supported the integration of transferable skills in TVET programs. In conclusion, students had a good perception toward the transferable skills and this ensured that all fresh graduates would develop good quality transferable skills which were integrated into their programs.