THE State Government should encourage more private institutions to open vocational and technical training centres, said Bongawan assemblyman Datuk Karim Bujang.
Suggesting this at the State Assembly sitting yesterday, Karim said this is to support the effort to create skilled human capital and competitive young entrepreneurs for developing the agriculture and agro-based industry in Sabah.
“With the encouragement of the State Government, Sabahan youths would have more opportunities created to gain knowledge in entrepreneurship and technical skills to participate in the development of this sector and in return to improve their economy.
“This is important towards achieving the government’s aspiration to create a vibrant economic development in Sabah, to eradicate poverty and enhance the State’s competitiveness and productivity,” he said when debating the Head of State’s policy speech.
Karim added the presence of more private technical institutes in Sabah would attract more school leavers to further their studies so that they can be more independent and would not rely too much on government’s assistance and subsidy.
He stressed that the agriculture and agro-based industry in Sabah was still largely unexplored despite the state having vast areas of fertile land.
He said Sabah is also geographically and strategically located within the rapidly growing BIMP-EAGA region which has a market of almost 140 million people.
Apart from tourism, he said, agriculture and agro-based industry are highly promising industries that can be further developed to significantly improve the State’s economy.
Strategies to develop the sector must not however exclude the local people but should instead be focused on finding ways how Sabahans can benefit from it and preparing the youths with the skill and knowledge was the best way to do it.
In this regards, he also urged plantation industry players in Sabah to reduce the number of foreign workers so as to allow more trained and highly skilled locals to take up the jobs availabe in the sector.
He said this would not only help provide employment opportunities to the locals but would also impact positively on the industry with the hiring of more skilled and trained workers.
He noted that Sabah was now in the final stage of phase one of the Sabah Development Corridor, the implementation of which require first class human capital for developing agriculture-based industries.
“As such, I must stress again that private technical institutes should seize the opportunities to invest in human capital development. This can also be considered as a corporate social responsibility to help increase the income and skills of the community,” he said.