Surge of students apply for polytechnic

More than 165,000 students nationwide apply to enrol for Technical Vocational and Educational Training (Tvet) at polytechnics this year.

"There are a lot of applications but we can only accept about 33,000 students and there are about 130,000 students who apply for vocational colleges," said Education Ministry's Polytechnic Education Department Deputy Director-General (Strategic) Shabudin Man.

However, despite the large numbers of applications, less than 30 per cent of students throughout Malaysia enrolled in Tvet courses.

In other developed countries such as Austria or Finland, he explained the number of students who enrolled in Tvet courses is much higher, reaching up to 65 per cent to 75 per cent, as they emphasise on fields relating to Tvet.