ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENTS’ DECISION AFTER SECONDARY SCHOOL: A STUDY ON THE DECLINING ENROLLMENT TREND IN TERTIARY EDUCATION

Abstract

Tertiary education plays a crucial role in promoting economic growth and development. Investing in tertiary education can contribute to economic growth by providing a skilled workforce, fostering innovation, and advancing research and development (World Bank, 2021). The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) released a report in 2019 revealed that, of the 560,000 SPM candidates, 390,000 were interested in starting a job right away and just 170,000 were interested in continuing their education. These concerning findings drive this study to identify the factor and subfactor that impact the student’s decision not to pursue higher education. The factors considered are financial constraints, student attributes and social influence. The subfactors are family background, high fees, availability of scholarships, dissatisfaction with the offered course, academic performance, social media, peer pressure, and a lack of motivation. This paper utilises the Fuzzy AHP Method to identify and rank the main factor and subfactor influencing the respondents’ decision, which are students from SMK Sungai Layar, Sungai Petani. Results show that financial constraint is the most preferred factor, while student attribute is the second-best factor. Meanwhile, social influence is found to be the lowest ranked factor.