KOTA KINABALU: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) will expand the implementation of free skills training proramme for the lowest household group (B40) in Sabah and Sarawak next year.
Its chairman Alice Lau Kiong Yieng said the agency would be targeting 250 participants in each of the states for the programme which would involve full time and part time training.
She said the training would take over a month and the participants would be provided with free accommodation, food and an allowance.
According to Lau, the programme would be in co-operation with Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Berhad to help the B40 group find employment after completing their training.
For the participants, involving those who were already employed and who would be joining the programme on a part time basis, it would be to boost their skills to enable them to gain promotions in their place of work, she told reporters during a dinner organised by Niosh here Monday night.
La said the pioneer programme had been implemented at the Niosh headquarters in Kuala Lumpur which was participated by 50 people this year and 33 of them had also found employments.
She said the challenge faced by Niosh in implementing the programme would be in ensuring the participants taking part in the programme on a full-time basis found jobs after completing the training.
‘’Other than a pay increase, the workers with high work skills will have the opportunity for promotions and unemployment problems can be overcome,’’ she said.
As such, she said, Niosh needed the co-operation of the industry to provide job opportunities and to ensure the implementation of the programme would meet its target. — Bernama