A POLICY PROTOTYPE OF COMPETENCY-BASED TRAINING FOR HIGH-SKILLED WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT IN NATIONAL TARGET INDUSTRIES

Abstract

This research presents the development of a short-term training curriculum designed to accelerate the production of high-quality human capital to support the country’s new target industries, namely Electric Vehicles (EV), Semiconductor Technology, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The objectives of the study were threefold: 1) Examine and analyze competency requirements and workforce skill gaps in the country’s target industries, including the EV, semiconductor, and AI sectors; 2) Develop and implement a competency-based training curriculum to produce
high-quality human capital through co-creation process between higher education institutions and industrial partners under the Research and Development (R&D) framework, integrating blended learning with real workplace practice; and 3) Evaluate the effectiveness of the developed competency-based training curriculum and synthesize a policy prototype for sustainable workforce development that can be scaled up to support New S-Curve industries. This study employed a Research and Development (R&D) methodology consisting of three phases: 1) Needs analysis, 2) Curriculum design and development, and 3) Implementation and evaluation. The training curriculum had a total duration of 145 hours and was piloted with 150 participants. The results revealed that the average competency score significantly increased from 61.82 to 84.37 (p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.88), indicating a high level of curriculum effectiveness. Participants developed innovation projects addressing real industrial production problems, such as an automated EV battery quality inspection system and an AI-based predictive maintenance dashboard, both of which were applied in industrial settings. Employers reported a high level of satisfaction with the competencies of program graduates. The synthesized policy prototype consists of four components: 1) A modular curriculum structure, 2) A university-industry collaboration mechanism, and 3) A competency assessment system, 4 A credit transfer mechanism to support workforce development in advanced technology industries across multiple national strategic sectors for sustainable, inclusive, and innovation-driven national economic growth and development.