THE Human Resource Development Corp (HRD Corp) would like to respond to an article by Vasanthi Ramachandran in The Vibes today, titled “Surprise us with a wiser cabinet, Mr Prime Minister”.
It would have to be a mature society in which its citizens imbibe and abide by the same values and principles that they expect of their elected representatives. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Take, for instance, Vasanthi’s article, which is littered with inaccuracies and lack data.
Take, for instance, her choice to highlight what she terms as ministers who are big on ideas, but short on implementation. It begs the question of her motivations.
She writes on the lack of training for employees and prospective job seekers because agencies under the Human Resources Ministry have been slow to adopt online learning.
No facts, no figures – just blatant allegations. Let me rebut some of the points made.
1. HRD Corp upskilled more Malaysians in 2020 and 2021 than at any other time in its history, thanks to funds made available by the Finance Ministry and with the able leadership of the human resources minister. Last year, more than 530,000 Malaysians received training; as of August 2021, more than 250,000 Malaysians did.
2. The silver lining, if any, from the advent of the pandemic is the adoption of online platforms by employers as the preferred choice for training employees. Of the total who had training in 2020 and 2021, 230,000 Malaysians did so online.
3. HRD Corp encourages training providers who received Penjana funding for face-to-face training to convert their training online with the caveat that they return the monies meant for food and drink, and the venue rental. This is only prudent as the funding is sourced from taxpayers’ money.
4. Allow me to also introduce an initiative that is the brainchild of Datuk Seri M. Saravanan. E-Latih is an online learning aggregator with almost 200,000 users registered in just the last six months since its launch. The platform has over 300 courses available for free to all Malaysians.
Perhaps, individuals like the writer should check out the platform before being critical of things that they may not be aware of.
On a separate note, while we are open to criticisms and suggestions, our hope, moving forward, is that Malaysians will display the same integrity and honesty they seek from their elected representatives. – The Vibes, August 23, 2021
Datuk Ariff Farhan Doss is chief operating officer of HRD Corp
