How the development of Engineering Expertise in Malaysia was derailed

If you examine the annual Auditor General’s reports, it is apparent that the government department lacks technical expertise in drafting requirements specifications, tender specifications, planning, coordination, design, tender evaluation, project implementation, supervision, quality control, testing, and so on.  This resulted in projects that are not useful, designs that are not practical, poor quality and workmanship, structural failures, wrong material used, late or non-deliveries, abandoned projects, and many other defects.  This list goes on and on and at great cost to the government and inconvenience and loss of opportunity to the citizens who were the intended beneficiaries of these projects. Somehow somewhere along the line since the formation of Malaysia, the development of our engineering expertise was derailed. This happened both in the public and private sectors.

Engineering is both an art and a science.  We can learn science in universities, but art requires practical experience.  Unlike other professions, engineering projects and product cycles can take a long time, usually in years and multiples thereof. A good engineer would, therefore, take many years of intense training through the numerous engineering processes.  In addition to this, an engineering manager would also need training in management science and practices.

When Malaya got its independence in 1957, the civil service was still run by the British.  To ensure a smooth succession, Tunku agreed with Britain that the British in the service should undergo natural attrition.  They will be replaced by Malaysians as and when the expats retire.  This may be one of the important lessons learned from the experience of India and Burma who got their independence ahead of us.    

After the events of 1969, everything changed.  The Tunku has lost his power. His foresight is being sidelined.  The new administration needed to garner support and what better way to do this than to retire the British civil servants early and replace them with Malaysians.   And so the Malaysianization program was accelerated. However, an action of this magnitude is more than likely to have unintended consequences but unfortunately, our leaders during that time did not anticipate them and take the necessary corrective measures.    

What I describe here is typical scenarios that could have taken place in many organizations.  Obviously, with different organization setups, people and organizational functions and challenges, a variety of scenarios and outcome would have taken placed.

Over the years, the British have not placed many Malaysians in high positions in the civil service.  Suddenly with the mass exodus of the British, Malaysians who are not trained for their new jobs were promoted. In other disciplines, those promoted may be able to acquire the basic skills required within a short time.  However, with engineering, we were not so lucky. Engineers who have not acquired the skills and experience to perform the engineering task of the department were promoted to be the heads of department simply because they were there.  How were these new heads who are lacking in skills and experience going to lead their department?  How were they going to instruct and train the junior engineers on skills that they do not have?  How were they going to evaluate the work of the department? Not surprisingly, to hide their incompetency, these new heads became more political.  The juniors, instead of getting mentored, were bullied.  Unless these engineers were self-starters, they were few avenues for them to acquire the engineering skills required.  

Pretty soon, these junior engineers were promoted, and the process repeats itself.  We ended up with a whole generation of engineers without the requisite skills and expertise.  Some of the hardcore technical sections within the department were disbanded as they cannot perform.  The difficult tasks were given out to consultants who faced the same expertise problems. Projects were also implemented as turnkey projects where there is no need even for close supervision by the government department.    

To compound the problem, Malaysia also faces severe brain drain.  Whatever left of the engineering skills and talents were further depleted.  This problem has continued until today.  It is so severe that the Government has set up the Talent Corporation to encourage our talents working overseas to return, unfortunately without much success.

That’s where we are today, and it is reflected very clearly in the Auditor General’s reports. The challenge is how to get us back on track.  Engineering is the backbone of any society.  With poor engineering skills, we are losing billions of Ringgits.  The defective infrastructure will further constrain us and reduces our competitiveness. There is an urgent need for the government to recognize this problem, not only in engineering but in other areas of the government administration.  Only then can this issue be discussed openly and plans for corrective actions be made.  Using conventional methods, the corrections may take a generation or more.  Fortunately, this is the information age.  With innovative and creative approaches that leverage technology, we may be able to reduce the time frame drastically. We must recognize this and face-up to the challenges.