The readiness of public universities in adopting industrial revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) from a construction management perspective

Abstract

There have been four major Industrial Revolutions that have developed human lifestyles. Currently, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, (IR 4.0), is taking place in major industries with current students and graduates requiring new talents and skills to become a future-proof workforce. However, current tertiary education is not yet fully equipped to deal with IR4.0 concepts. This results in the low awareness of IR4.0 among students and graduates where they are not yet ready to enter an IR4.0 workspace. This is especially so in construction management education. Hence, the aim of this research is to improve existing construction engineering education by including IR4.0. This research is based on data collected from a survey by questionnaire responses from construction management undergraduate and postgraduate students at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam. The findings show that these construction management students agreed that challenges such as the traditional construction management curricular structure and the lack of IR4.0 facilities hindered the implementation of IR4.0 in construction management education. Therefore, recommendations such as the collaboration of industry experts with universities and students to enable the adoption of IR4.0 into project-based learning were discussed. In conclusion, this study hopes to help both universities and students to be prepared for the integration of and benefits from, implementing IR4.0 in construction management education.