Trends in Geospatial
Education for Working
Professionals
BASIC EDUCATION OPTIONS
At the bachelor's degree level, UTM
and UiTM are the main players that
help provide the nation with the well
trained and educated graduates. These
graduates form the bulk of the workforce
helping to sustain and move the geospatial
agenda in the government and private
sectors. In addition to these locally
trained graduates, a minority group of
Malaysians who studied geospatial
courses abroad also form an important
group of contributors to the industry.
Australia is a popular destination
among those heading abroad, primarily
being that a number of the Australian
geomatics (surveying) degrees are recognized
by the Malaysian government. This
has been due to the traditional and historical
link between the two countries.
Furthermore, the Torrens System in
Malaysia is very much based on the Australian
system.
The local educational institutes play a
positive role in producing the technicians,
technical assistant, and geospatial
engineers/surveyors at the bachelor's
level. As this group of new graduates
enters the workforce, there are opportunities
for these groups of people to
further enhance their knowledge and
skills if they choose to pursue a fulltime
course of higher level.
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However the realities of today's competitive
work environment does not
allow for a large number of staff to pursue
higher education on a full time basis
at the same time. There is thus a need for
fresh thinking into the formulation of
special programs to cater for the workforce.
One such program is the Masters in
RS and GS offered after office hours and
on the weekend at the Universiti Putra
Malaysia.
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Such programs allow the employees to
improve their knowledge, skill, and competitive
levels while holding onto to their
full time salaried jobs. In addition to this,
the matured student also has the opportunity
to explore new projects which
have a potential for their company or to
extend one of the projects undertaken at
his office to a Masters level research project.
This not only helps the company that
the matured student works for, as it also
paves the way for practical and implementation
level projects to be brought
into the academia.
The synergy formed by the grouping of
working matured students and the academic
staff will certainly lead to higher
levels of achievements, benefiting the
industry and country as a whole. Government
agencies and the industry too gain
as they do not "lose" employees to
full time post-graduate education. On the
contrary, the employers gain as
these matured students become better
workers with the state of the art knowledge
and training received n the Masters
program.
With this being the scenario, we certainly
need to explore on making such
Masters program viable and suited especially
for the working group of employees.
Some of the major factors that
impact a program of this nature are discussed
below.
LOCATION OF PROGRAM
The program for the matured students
needs to be within a reasonable traveling
time from the workplace/homes of
the maturated students. Students should
be able to get to their class's n a reasonable
amount of time after office for he
evening and night classes.
TIME OF COURSES
Generally the courses are suitable to
be held on the weekend. In circumstances
where there are a significant
number of students from organizations,
then prior arrangements maybe made
for special teaching camps, where teaching
contact hours for a traditional semester
may be covered in a shorter period
FUNDING ARRANGEMENTS
Government funding in terms of
study loans with long term repayment
period, grants to universities to
conduct teaching for professionals and
low interest rate private sector funding
will be a boost to the success of these programs
for the matured students.
INSTITUTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Healthy and positive relations
between the government/private
agencies with the universities will see a
healthy growth in the professional
matured students program since employees
at the government/private agencies
will have a sense of confidence that their
education is being valued by their
employers. University lecturers will also
be able to gain primary data sources to
aid their research projects.
Within this scenario, and the fact that
the Malaysian government is actively
pursuing the IT agenda, especially with
the support given for the Multimedia
Super Corridor, it is envisaged that
greater support and enthusiasm for
the Professional Masters program will
lead to more internationally competitive
Malaysian geospatial products .