Business

Wednesday October 21, 2009

Iskandar demands competent workforce

By ZAZALI MUSA


This is to complement excellent infrastructure being developed there

JOHOR BARU: Johor must be able to produce capable, competent and work-ready labour force over the next 15 years to ensure the success of Iskandar Malaysia.

Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman (pic) said apart from being well educated, the workforce must also have skills required by employers.

“It is vital for our workforce to readily support the development of Iskandar under its Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) starting 2006 until 2025,’’ he said.

Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman

Ghani was speaking at a press conference at the launch of the Iskandar Malaysia Graduate Leadership Assessment and Development (IMglad) programme yesterday.

IMglad is a partnership between Iskandar Malaysia Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Research Centre (IMrec) and Deloitte.

It is based on the highly successful United Kingdom Deloitte Employability Centre. The programme is known as GLAD in the UK.

Under the programme, the first 300 participants will attend a three-month classroom training for, among others, effective communication, leadership development, team working skills, self improvement and self confidence development.

It is one of the 65 initiatives outlined under the Iskandar Malaysia Human Capital Development Blueprint to support the economic activities targeted for Iskandar.

Ghani said the blueprint had been drawn up with the long-term objective of equipping Iskandar with a pool of skilled workforce that would complement the excellent infrastructure being developed in Iskandar.

“Human capital development is one of the key strategies for Iskandar’s success and also to attract the best talents from all over the world without sidelining Malaysians,’’ he said.

He said six initiatives were already being implemented or in the pipeline; the first being the setting up of JobsMalaysia One Stop Centre to matchmake job seekers with potential employers in Iskandar.

Ghani said next would be the Contractors Development Programme, Local Authority Development Programme and two entrepreneurship development programmes.

IMrec executive director Professor Dr Abdul Ghani Khalid said 120 employers in and outside Johor had agreed to participate in the IMglad by providing a six-month internship programme to the participants.

He said that during their internship, the participants must be able to market themselves and get employed with these organisations and this would be used as the index to measure the programme’s success.

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