KUCHING: The merging of creative and innovative human resource with natural resource could determine a bright future for the state and the country as a whole.
Jamil (right) and Teo exchanging documents after the signing ceremony, witnessed by Abang Johari (centre). — Photo by Jeffery Mostapa
As such, it is important to strengthen both resources in order for the state to compete with highly developed countries as well as market forces, said Minister of Tourism Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Abang Openg yesterday.
He said among the strategies are collaboration between higher learning institutions with industries and the private sector to produce talented
human resources and to produce very strong small medium enterprises (SMEs) which could expand and then penetrate into certain markets internationally.
Citing Germany as example, he said in their history of transformation after the Second World War, they emphasised on SMEs and institutions of higher learning working together with the private sector through a programme called apprenticeship.
“This is what we are doing now. It is right time we can strengthen our SMEs through internship and apprentice programmes.
“In our development plan in five to 10 years, we have to position ourselves in this competitive world.”
He was witnessing the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) and Collaborative Agreement (CA) between Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Sarawak and Sarawak Tourism Board, Daitoku Sdn Bhd and Sarawak Information System (Sains) Sdn Bhd at UiTM campus here yesterday.
Abang Johari explained that collaboration with academics and practitioners could transform the country, especially Sarawak’s basic economy.
“We have seen through history, successful economy is the result of right training of human resource. This training will become a platform for new initiative and new product in the industry.
“I have been to Germany, the programme there is that particular apprenticeship programme, where students are placed in certain industry, where they can become the right resource for them to participate in the industrial economy in Germany especially after the Second World War. Japan is also doing the same thing,” he said.
According to him, economy is based on what a county has and what it could do.
As for Sarawak, he said we have natural resources, but what the state lacks is talented human resources, which can be developed through institutions of higher learning and application in the real world.
“We must emphasise priority to new economy which is basically innovative economy. We don’t rely on resource only, but the capability to create things out of nothing,” he pointed out.
UiTM rector Professor Datuk Dr Jamil Hamali, Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) chief executive officer Datuk Rashid Khan, Sains chief executive officer Datuk Teo Tien Hong and Daitoku Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Alfred Ling were also present.
Daitoku is a green technology company providing waste management solutions to palm oil mills (POM) producing EFB-organic fertiliser from POMs solid waste biomass.
The MoA with UiTM focuses on three project studies on sustainable soil management using oil palm empty fruit bunch compost, growth response of oil palm to oil palm empty fruit bunch compost, and growth response of other perennial and annual crops to oil palm empty fruit bunch compost through the attachment of students and UiTM staff in the oil palm estate field study.
Sains, as part of its corporate social responsibility, is supporting the development and implantation of a project known as ‘e-integral map’.
The project was innovated and invented by the research group of Mathematics lecturers from UiTM Sarawak.
This mutually beneficial project will enable university students to acquire knowledge on integral calculus interactively utilising solutions provided by Sains.
It is anticipated that this collaboration will further the university’s primary mission, which is education and the advancement of knowledge through information and communication technology.
As for STB, through the MoU, students from the disciplines of tourism, business, marketing, event management and computer science will have an opportunity to gain working knowledge in the various areas offered by STB.
Some of the areas include destination marketing, communication, information technology, finance, human resource and event management.
Apart from that, students in other related programmes in UiTM Sarawak such as business and marketing can have an equal opportunity for internship programme at STB.