A TVET ACT for Malaysia?

Malaysia doesn’t lack TVET programmes. It lacks a system.

Across ministries and agencies, TVET initiatives work hard—often well—but in parallel. Skills standards sit in one place, funding in another, delivery in many, and industrial ambition somewhere else. The result is familiar: capable graduates, uneven absorption, and a persistent gap at Tier-2—the integrators and technologists who stabilise factories, upgrade SMEs, and make productivity stick.

That’s why the idea of a National TVET System Governance Act matters.

This Act is not about replacing existing laws like the National Skills Development Act 2006. NASDA does what it was designed to do—standards, assessment, certification—and does it well. What’s missing is an umbrella law that binds TVET to industrial formation, funding to outcomes, and ministries to a shared mandate.

Look abroad and the pattern is clear. Germany treats vocational training as part of its industrial order under the Vocational Training Act (BBiG)—with employers legally embedded and qualifications portable. South Korea compels inter-ministerial coordination so skills formation follows national industrial strategy. Singapore centralises governance and financing through the SkillsFuture Singapore Agency Act, treating skills as future-economy infrastructure. Other nations, by contrast, do show what happens when skills policy relies on programmes without binding system architecture: uneven results and a stubborn skills-jobs gap.

Malaysia sits between these models. We have strong standards, but weak systemic formation—especially beyond entry-level. The proposed Act fixes that by making three shifts: from training supply to industrial formation; from ministry-led programmes to a national system; and from entry-level skills to full progression (Tier-1 to Tier-3).

Practically, the Act would establish Cabinet-level governance, lock in inter-ministerial participation, define industrial formation (including anchor–SME co-formation), and tie funding to verified capability outcomes, not seat time. It would keep NASDA intact—inside a larger architecture that finally makes progression and portability unavoidable.

The payoff? Tier-2 stops being an accident. SMEs become capability-owning. TVET becomes what it should have always been: an instrument of industrial maturity, not a collection of courses.

Skills must serve industry, not sentiment—otherwise education produces certificates, not growth.

 In short, Malaysia doesn’t need more TVET. It needs a law that finishes the system.