Varsities Must Teach The Skill To Acquire Knowledge

Ir. Ahmad Jais Alias
Fellow/Pemangku Pengarah

03/06/2008 | The Star

In one of my articles written last November, I emphasised on the importance of Continuing Professional Development for the graduates, to be extended beyond their formal university education. One of the reasons is to bridge the gap between what they have acquired during their studies, with the demands and expectations of employers in the job market.

If we took the opportunity to gauge the feedback from the employers (or potential employers), most of them are of the opinion that the graduates are not ready for a job requiring certain command of knowledge which graduates were supposed to have acquired from their learning process in universities. Another common concern is the apparent lack of skills among the graduates which would enable them to adapt and adopt new knowledge and skills at their workplace. Hence, employers have to spend a handsome sum of money to send their graduate employees to training and enhancement programmes.

These are two aspects for us to ponder. On the one hand, graduates are expected to acquire knowledge, at least to a minimum level in their field of study; while on the other hand, they are expected to be sufficiently trained in certain skills which will enable them to be self-sufficient in their jobs. So, where do we begin to address these concerns?

Perhaps we should begin by trying to understand the difference between the process of learning vis a vis the training process. Which should universities focus more on?

In acquiring knowledge, one is necessarily referring to the process of learning, in other words, the cognitive process of acquiring knowledge or skill. The result of learning correctly conducted is profound scholarly knowledge. Prof S.M.N. al-Attas defines knowledge as ‘both the arrival of meaning in the soul as well as the soul's arrival at meaning'. It is this meaning which allows the seeker to understand the relation between the subject matter of knowledge, and knowledge itself.

Therefore, the process of learning in universities should produce graduates with the ability to understand the meanings of what they have learned. They should able to explain it, elaborate on it and create a new relationship between what they have learned, and the current and real challenges in the employment sector. The process of acquiring knowledge may be established by means of external and internal senses and faculties, reason and intuition, and true reports of a scientific or religious nature and transmitted by their authentic authorities.

Students should therefore learn about the purpose of knowledge, and how to acquire knowledge correctly. This will necessitate life-long learning, and will continue with individual professional development, even at their workplace. The question is, does our higher education system today help to prepare students with regard to how to acquire knowledge? Or is ‘spoon-feeding' information still the norm?

As real knowledge is acquired through training, skills are also developed by training. There are other meanings to the term skill; ‘an ability that has been acquired through training' or ‘an ability to produce solutions in some problem domain'. Normally, skilled workers are trained in the same activities or sequence of processes, until they command a certain level of craftsmanship that enables them to produce successive controlled or similar results.

There are trade-offs here. If the education system focuses more on producing skilled graduates in terms of ‘techne', they may neglect the ability to acquire knowledge.

In my opinion we should train students with skill of acquiring knowledge. Acquiring knowledge is actually paramount to be repeated constantly throughout our life. With the skills to acquire knowledge, a person actually fulfils the requirements for continuous lifelong professional development. All other knowledge, skill and ability, will henceforth be automatic. The institution of higher education should perhaps ponder and reflect, and subsequently act.

Source :  Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia