Issues in Malaysia TVET throughout the year

Lack of student motivation and career counselling

There are three factors which are intrinsic, extrinsic and altruistic motivations will influence students to choose a TVET curriculum as their higher education after secondary school (Omar et al., 2020) . According to Omar et al. (2020) , TVET programs are basically provided for lower grades and weak socio-economics backgrounds students. Hence, many negative perceptions have grown and influenced student’s motivation in choosing TVET education. Besides, deficient career counselling from TVET counsellor affect their interest in TVET program.

Stigma towards TVET education

Parents and community are the most influential factors that affect students’ motivation in pursuing TVET programs. Mahuyu and Makochekanwa (2020) stated that perceptions of TVET curriculum are low performers and socio-economic, weak in academic achievement, dirty work and unorganized. Furthermore, TVET-based qualifications and careers are not well known-well in the workplace and difficult to have a bright future in jobs (Ismail & Abiddin, 2014) .

Lecturer’s competency and inadequacies of infrastructure resources

Shortage of qualified teaching staff and skills in technical and vocational caused incompetence in teaching methods and classroom management, not interested in assigned subjects among lecturers (Hanapi et al., 2015) . Besides, vocational lecturers find it difficult to enhance their knowledge and skills due to lack of budget, rotation system and heavy workload (Ismail et al., 2018) . Hong et al. (2021) also supported the statement where insufficiency of curriculum adjustment and less industrial linkage cause low enrolment in community college.

Challenges in Malaysia TVET during outbreak COVID-19 pandemic

Institutes’ readiness to the new norm learning

It is difficult to migrate into online learning as TVET curriculum focuses more on practical skills and work readiness. Some practical skills cannot be done at home as some specific tools and equipment only provided by the institutions (Hoftijzer et al., 2020) . This situation becomes worse when many businesses close and effect students’ internship period as they are unable to buffer the cost (Majumdar & Araiztegui, 2020) .

Instructors’ readiness to the new norm learning

Due to the pandemic COVID-19 outbreak, all education institutions must be closed to prevent widespread among students. This ad hoc response dramatically changes the teaching method and adapt with new norm teaching quickly. However, most instructors lack skills in e-learning usage and integrating ICTs in teaching pedagogy (Dumbiri & Nwadiani, 2020) . Besides, longer time is needed to prepare teaching materials and improve IT skills before class (Lie et al., 2020) . Furthermore, low collaboration with students also disrupted the online teaching and caused less ICT implementation in online teaching.

Students’ readiness to the new norm learning

Most students face problem with limited internet connectivity, remote training skills and lack of digital tools due to low socio-economics background. Besides, low motivation due to burnout from online learning also affected the collaboration in assessment and assignment among students (UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre, 2020) .