TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION, HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY: CASE STUDY OF MALAYSIA’S PUBLIC UNIVERSITY

Suzana Ariff Azizan

Research program: Globalisation and Education

This study will examine the changing role of university particularly the public universities in leveraging talent for technological development. The major issue to look at is how public universities could help in developing skilled human capital to facilitate national technological progress.

Recently, several strategies had been adopted by Malaysia to strengthen its human capital, these include increase the enrolment at all levels of education, provide more opportunities to pursue tertiary education, scholarships for post-graduate degrees and improvement of learning facilities. Indeed, RM45.1 billion has been allocated in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010) for educational purposes.

It is hoped that this study would provide Malaysia a solid framework in charting appropriate strategies to not only in producing skilled human capital that is in line with the technology growth, but more importantly, increasing the nation competency in the global world.