PENANG, 8 April 2015 - Knowledge transfer programmes (KTP) which were first introduced in 2010 are part of the Critical Agenda Programmes (CAP) of the Ministry of Education Malaysia and will be expanded to an international platform to strengthen the role of higher education in transferring expertise to the industry and community.

Chairman of the KTP, Professor Dato’ Dr. Omar Osman stated that the proposed internationalisation is in line with the goals of KTP to increase participation and co-operation between academia and the industry/community.

He stated that KTP will spread its wings to the global arena by co-operating with strategic foreign partners to broaden the context of transferring knowledge and best practices to ensure best quality delivery.

“We intend to organise a KTP conference at the end of this year which will include participation of strategic partners from Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan among others, so that they can share with us their knowledge and experiences in knowledge transfer.

“This effort will focus more on producing excellent output that can inspire the best strategies which can be applied for example in business, enhancing job opportunities and so on,” he continued.

Omar, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of USM, added that KTP is the most significant medium to demonstrate the existence and role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in providing benefits to the industry and community in order to make life more meaningful for them. 

“Overall KTP combines universities’ collaboration with the industry and the community through the expertise of their lecturers who produce graduate trainees to help transfer knowledge, processes or technology to the industry/community.

“Such transfer of knowledge should be helpful to the industry to develop in terms of business activities, economy, education, green education and so on - especially for the small and medium sized industries and also for the community at large,” he added.

Omar also added that KTP is in preparation to be included in the 11th Malaysia Plan and 389 projects proposed by academics from public universities are currently being evaluated to select projects which have the best potential to translate the objectives of KTP for 2015 into tangible activities.

From these proposals, it is expected that only 60 projects will be selected to be implemented with either the industry or the community.

It is hoped that KTP would form part of the aspirations of the Malaysian Education blueprint for Higher Education (PPPM-PT), namely in the shift to catalyse economic and social development.

“At the end of the day we hope to see that the objectives of KTP have succeeded in equipping the industries and community with added value that proves beneficial in their development and enhances their competitiveness.

“It is also hoped that co-operation at the international level will enhance the achievements in the innovation ecosystem, in line with aims of the PPPM-PT to harness the universities’ knowledge for the benefit of the industry and community,” he stated.

In this way, the KTP framework will counter the notion that universities exist merely as ivory towers, since they would have proven themselves capable of sharing knowledge and expertise with the community.

Up till 2014 a total of RM54 million has been allocated to finance 349 projects of which 222 are with the industry and 127 projects are directed at the community. RM2 million has also been allocated for monitoring programmes.

To date, KTP projects have provided direct exposure to more than 700 academics and trainee graduates on the realities of industry and community.

For this year RM14 million has been approved of which RM10 million is in the form of KTP grants while RM4 million will be set aside for monitoring and research on top of the RM4.2 million carried forward from last year. - Translation: Dr. Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah/Text: Marziana Mohamed Alias