Plenary Lecture:

Engineering Employability Skills required by Employers in Asia

Associate Professor Dr Azami Zaharim
Head Centre for Engineering Education Research
Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor
MALAYSIA
Email: azami@vlsi.eng.ukm.my

Abstract: Employers nowadays place main concern on and give emphasis to employability skills in potential engineers which caused a significant increase in unemployment among engineering graduates in Malaysia. There are several discussions and studies on "What types of skills and abilities are needed in the workplace?" How the government and higher education overcomes this rising phenomenon? This study attempts to look into engineering employability skills that have been required for their new engineers by other countries in Asia such as Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. This paper will put forward a list comprised of the skills needed by these four countries, and compare the existing similarities and differences of these enlisted skills. Information was gathered from articles, journals, papers and reports. The findings indicate that these countries have published reports on the necessary frameworks of employability skills to prepare engineering graduates for the employment today and in the future. Overall, the studies suggest that the engineering graduates should acquire and demonstrate a set of generic skills such as communication skills, problem solving and interpersonal skills.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Azami Zaharim worked first 15 years as a lecturer in the Universiti Teknologi MARA (University of MARA Technology - UiTM) before joining the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia - UKM) in the year 2003. He is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment UKM, and is currently the head for centre engineering education research. He obtained his BSc(Statistics and Computing) with Honours from North London University, UK in 1988 and PhD (Statistics) in 1996 from University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. He specialize in statistics, public opinion, engineering education and renewable energy resources.
He has until now published over 100 research papers in Journals and conferences, conducted more than 15 public opinion consultancies and delivered 3 keynotes/invited speeches at national and international meetings. He is currently the head of Renewable Energy Resources and Social Impact Research Group under the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI). In the year 2007, he headed the Engineering Mathematics Research Group.