Effective Transitional Plan from Secondary Education to Employment for Individuals with Learning Disabilities: A Case Study

One of the major goals in the education and training of individuals with special needs is to prepare them forindependence. However, in the Malaysian context, parents who have special adolescents are in doubt as to whatwould be the future of their children soon after they have finished the vocational training. This case studyexplores the transitional needs and subsequently to develop an effective transitional plan from secondaryeducation to employment for Malaysian individuals with special needs. The sample comprises two high schoolspecial educators and four persons with learning disabilities who are at work. The findings were triangulatedamong five co-ordinators of Non-Governmental Organisation, as well as parents for the four persons withlearning disabilities and their employers. The findings reveal that transitional needs of individuals with specialneeds includes collaborative support system, job coaching, self-advocacy skills training, career guidance andtransition assessment, vocational training, trained transition personnel and transition services. The transitionprocess would be a collaborative process between the government and non-governmental sector. From thefindings, an effective transitional plan from secondary education to employment for students with learningdisabilities was drawn. Several implications have been drawn from this study.