Abstract:

University education has always been the center of attraction because it is one of the key determiners of students’ future success, later as university graduates enter the workplace and also in personal life. Additionally, higher education (HE) also has received much attention because of its significant impact on a country’s human capital development. At this level, the general or academic orientation is more commonly applied in many universities. In this paper, we argue that university education should place greater emphasis on vocational and e-learning (VEL) orientation instead of the more common general or academic orientation as this would eventually enhance employability skills in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, promote personal development that balances between self and others and contribute significantly to human capital development. In our discussion, we focus on Malaysia as an example of a fast developing nation aiming to achieve the developed nation status by highlighting several issues and challenges related to Malaysia’s education crisis that may have also been beleaguering other developing nations and suggest possible solutions. In summary, we propose the adoption of the VEL HE 4.0 orientation from which all parties involved in the HE sector, the job market and nation-building would gain optimal benefits without forsaking the future of the university graduates and the workforce in both technical and non-technical fields.

Keywords:

University education, vocational education, e-learning, employability, personal development, human capital development.