(Re)Positioning Humanities in the Malaysian Higher Education Landscape

This paper discusses the humanities and humanities education, which is inevitablyembedded in the context of a re-assessment of the role and functions of universities inthe current and future Industry 4.0 environment. While the humanities are generallyconsidered as an embattled field since the emphasis on science and technology subjects inmany developed and emerging economies, this paper does not subscribe to the notion ofthe humanities being handcuffed to a crisis narrative that are incomplete and disabling itsfuture potentials. In the Industry 4.0 environment and perhaps an equivalent Society 4.0,there would be a dire need for society to envision a plan that would give top priority to thepotential benefits of a higher education based on human-technology convergence. Failureto do so would mean humans would be overwhelmed by robotics and artificial intelligence(AI), peripheralising any disciplines that are considered as not relevant. In the contextof Malaysia, the paper unpicks the issues and challenges in the provision of humanitieseducation in the higher education landscape that begin to acknowledge and reclaim values and the human outcome in the higher education system still in the nascent stage of realisingthe importance of framing policies in the context of the human-technology convergence.This paper concludes by suggesting the way forward in re-positioning the humanities andhumanities education, which would contribute to the idea of humanising higher educationin the context of Industry 4.0.