In conversation with
Madam Tan Cheng Liang

Higher Education Spotlight: How did you feel when you took this position? What were your ambitions for the role?

Madam Tan Cheng Liang: Though I have been in this position for just two years, I have been involved in education thirty ago. I ran a small school, I was a lecturer, and I was also heavily involved in social work- I’m president of the single mother association. I have seen a lot of these poor students who have no means to pursue their education. That’s why I joined Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), because MCA has a holistic approach to education, planning, programs, projects, and policy.

One thing they do is to influence the government to liberalise education and open up opportunity both in public or private institution for placement of the Chinese students, and those who are poor. They are talented too, we should not waste this human resource. The biggest asset that any company, institution, or country can have is in the human resources. Especially in today’s world, we are arriving in a “K-economy”, or knowledge economy, it’s very crucial. It’s like print newspapers moving to online- you have to change. The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself, so we have to embrace it.

I am very pleased to have the job to transform VTAR Institute, formerly KOJADI Institute. In the beginning this institute provided certificates and diplomas, not university level qualifications. Later on when we set up TAR University College, which also ran diploma and certificate courses. So, under MCA we had two entities, in a sense, running the same thing. There was conflict of interest. So the top leadership decided to change KOJADI Institute to run skilled education. It was only set up around four years ago. We found the location at Wisma MCA was not suitable for running education in the sense that it is a commercial area without a proper campus and expansion space for the school. When I took over I decided to move it out to KTAR, which is also under the MCA umbrella. It so happened that the university UTAR had recently left 4 blocks vacant here when they moved to their new campus in Sungai Long. We were lucky to find such a beautiful place for such low rates, as it allows us to keep our student fees low and provide affordable education.

Who are our students? The ones who are not academically inclined. They don’t like languages, or history, so they become drop outs and don’t finish SPM- the O-level, or GCSE, equivalent in Malaysia. But they are not stupid! They are right-brained- skilled, and good at art and crafts. These students who have dropped out are welcome at our institution, even if they are poor. We offer scholarships and, if a student is not interested in the courses with scholarships, they have access to loans through the government, and MCA.

I go around the country to schools and villages in the poor rural areas to give talks to the community. We want students to know that if they fail history in school they shouldn’t worry, it’s not the end of the world, you are good in other fields. Come to our school and we’ll train you.

How do you identify the role of VTAR in the new Malaysian Education Blueprint for higher education? What are you implementing from the “ten pillars” of the blueprint?

Madam Tan Cheng Liang: Malaysia’s vision is that by the year 2020 we will be a developed nation. Under the blueprint, TVET play a big role. Now manufacturing and tourism make up a big chunk of our income. But if you want manufacturing and tourism you need a lot of skilled workers and tour guides who speak other languages, particularly Mandarin. In the southern region alone they need 45,000 skilled workers for tourism, for hospitality, even for film-making at the studios there.

This is where we are needed. The government hopes that through the economy transformation they’re going to create 3.3 million jobs, and out of these 46% are going to be filled by skilled workers. Now in Malaysia we have 200,000 graduates unemployed. We have 1,500 doctors unemployed. We have an oversupply of engineers with bachelor’s who are unemployed. They are not specialised. There’s a shortage of technicians. Our school is going to play a very big role.

The Ministry of Human Resources came in to do a lot of partnerships with us. We have the capability and resources and network to expand the school. We’re going to branch out into other parts of the country. Our long term plan is to eventually achieve university status for vocational training. It is our big dream. We want to branch out because skill training requires a lot of investment in facilities and it’s restricted in a sense by the skill development department under the Ministry of Human Resources. It requires small class sizes and a lot of labs and technical rooms for practical training. All this requires heavy capital investment.

How do you go about finding new partnerships, and how have you taken advantage of being part of ASEAN?

Madam Tan Cheng Liang: We are collaborating with a few industries. The first one is with the Malaysian Furniture Association. They have spoken out many times that their industry with 3,000 members are the eighth largest exporter for dining and bedroom sets in the world and they are in very desperate circumstances of shortage of skilled labourers. They cannot find skilled masters because they engage a lot of foreigners. Foreigners tend to return to their country after about five years, and then companies have to train new employees to replace them. These are mostly people who work in the most labour intensive sector. We collaborate with them because, being an MCA party, we have the network in Malaysia to go and recruit all these students aged 16 and above who have dropped out. The Ministry of Human Resources have funded the whole thing and then with the Malaysian Furniture Association will pay for internships for the students and the Ministry of Human Resources will pay for their allowance while they’re doing theory at our school. That means the student will get RM1,200 subsidy and they can sustain themselves while learning skills, and can become craft masters. We are very happy that by December this year the first batch of students will be graduating and will be obtaining what they call the Malaysian Skills Certificate Level 2 in furniture making.

In a sense we take the government standard and we brain storm with the industrial people to make sure it matches their process. If there is anything missing, we will develop a specialised custom-made process.

The other one is with the Euro Star Beauty company, which is the top beauty industry player in the country. They have 80 branches throughout the country but they cannot find beauticians. Everyone wants to be a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, because that’s what they were told to do! This is a very lucrative market- a hard working beautician can earn up to 15,000 Malaysian Ringgit a month. We have our own specialists who run the course, and on top of that engage with industrial players who are very good in their field to come in part time as visiting lecturers.

How do you create sustainable education? Do you provide services that generate profit?

Madam Tan Cheng Liang: When I moved the school to KTAR I noticed how they had 20,000 students and 600 staff in the main campus alone. I thought, “These students will need haircuts. They will need to eat.” I did some research, and looked at the prices of what was available to the students and decided to start a hair-dressing department. For practical classes on cutting hair, we charge half the market price for people to come in and have their hair cut by our students. We set up a salon that provides beauty therapy and skin care, so we have customers who come in for skin treatment, a haircut and then go to our bistro for a cup of coffee.

So in the sense of sustainability, this generates income and with that they can have student activities and participate in skill-based competitions. Competitions then give them the opportunity to promote themselves to find employment and promote the institution. If we can have more collaboration with the industry, more competitions, this improves our star rating and will contribute to our path towards university status.
On top of that we run short courses during the weekend. As I mentioned, we collaborate with industry by providing student interns, and on top of that we provide upskilling for their existing employees, bringing them up to speed with the latest technology in their industry. For example, we are the training centre for Omron Electronics equipment.

Regarding our competitiveness in the ASEAN region, we see existing industrial players opening up auto workshops, hairdressing salons, etc. who may not have the appropriate certification. The government has specifically said that, in the future, if you do not have the proper certification you are not a recognised professional body and will have problems running your business. So we are going to help them. There’s a scheme for using experience and converting it into certification. We only need to train the part they are lacking for the certificate criteria. And when you have the officially recognised certificate you are competitive in the ASEAN market.

Do you believe that people genuinely have an idea of what ASEAN can mean for higher education, and recognise the opportunities it offers?

Madam Tan Cheng Liang: I think Malaysia is taking a leap in this region. Many years back we had a problem with the quota for student intake. There was competition amongst us causing tension and strife. Why not open up the market for private institutions? That’s why today Malaysia has so many private universities, institutes, colleges, and we’re going to make Malaysia an education hub. We are already leading in this region. Now we have so many people coming from all over the world to study in Malaysia. Because we have International Islamic University Malaysia we have a lot of people from the Middle East coming to study here. We have a lot British, European, and Australian universities with campuses here. These are prestigious institutions that attract students from all over the region.

We are working very closely with China. Malaysia has already officially recognised 800 universities in China. So we are going to do a lot of collaboration with them.

In your long career in education, what are the things that have made you most proud?

Madam Tan Cheng Liang: My students. There is one student who graduated last year, a very smart student, he designed a robot and designed an open source 3D printer. This technology is still relatively new in Malaysia, so he made this printer for us. Now the junior students can use the 3D printer for their projects, which is much more refined and beautiful than the traditional method. This student, before he even graduated, was taken up by an industrial player. He’s already a big boss doing R&D. I’m very proud. He recruited another three students and they are all working together under the same umbrella.

I’m proud of the fact that students love to come here. We have a loving approach, we care about our students, we provide counselling and promote positive energy. I purposefully keep my office open, so students can come straight to me when they need to. My philosophy is, “You make sure you learn, I’ll make sure you graduate- as long as you’re not lazy!”

How do you promote the concept of lifelong learning to your students?

Madam Tan Cheng Liang: When students arrive at this school I personally give them motivational lectures. I say, “When you finish at this school, you get a certificate, you can get a well paid job, but this is only 50% of your success in life. The other 50% depends on your attitude, your character, your ethics, your integrity.” So, we train them on these life skills too. It’s lifelong learning in the sense that we will train them on skills that will benefit their whole life- free English lessons, free computer classes for those without access to computers, and so on. If students need help with their personal presentation for the process of getting recruited we help them with that, with free haircuts, for example, or coaching them on how they carry themselves.