We don’t have an IoT talent shortage.
We have a relevance problem.
I’ve seen too many IoT syllabuses that look good on paper…
but fall apart the moment students touch the real world.
Slides are polished.
Exams are passed.
Graduates are confident.
Then industry asks a simple question.
“Can they deploy this?”
Silence.
Building an IoT curriculum is not about chasing buzzwords.
It’s about closing the gap between classrooms and construction sites.
Between theory and messy reality.
Students don’t need more definitions.
They need exposure.
To sensors that fail.
To networks that drop.
To dashboards that confuse users.
To data that refuses to behave.
Industry doesn’t need perfect graduates.
It needs graduates who can think, troubleshoot, adapt.
Who understand why edge matters.
Who know when cloud makes sense.
Who can justify costs, not just architectures.
Who see security as responsibility, not a chapter at the end.
TVET schools and universities hold a powerful lever.
They shape how the next generation thinks about building systems that people rely on.
If we teach IoT as a subject, we produce students.
If we teach IoT as a practice, we produce builders.
The future skills gap is not about technology.
It’s about judgement.
And that starts with how we design what we teach.
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Dr. Mazlan Abbas 