Agility and future readiness are fundamental 21st-century skills that could guide university students globally to thriving and benefiting from a VUCA—volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—world. The ability to respond flexibly, make informed decisions, and adapt to rapid change reflects future-readiness capabilities. However, little is known about the empirical role of the university curriculum, learning ecosystem, and learning experience as perceived by university students in developing these skills. Therefore, we analysed data collected from 209 Malaysian university students from 16 universities to assess whether these three pertinent factors impact the students’ learning agility and determine how well learning agility predicts learners’ future readiness. The present study empirically assessed a theoretical model using a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. The analysis supported all the hypotheses proposed in this study, which implies that the extended model could effectively predict learners’ agility and future readiness. The results revealed that the university learning experience, ecosystem, and curriculum positively, directly, and significantly affected learning agility and future readiness. Furthermore, the findings showed that student agility significantly mediated the relationships between the student learning experience, university learning ecosystem, and curriculum and student future readiness. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of a future-ready education nurtured by a vibrant learning ecosystem that delivers lasting values and experiences for students and communities to appreciate the opportunities for a challenging yet exciting future offered by a VUCA environment. The established empirical model describing the empirical interplays between these correlates could, in turn, aid better evidence-based policy making in higher education.

Purpose The practice of social entrepreneurship has grown rapidly around the world, including in Malaysia where it is still considered to be at an early stage. Nevertheless, little is known about the career transition among youth who choose careers as social entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges faced by youth social entrepreneurs who run social enterprises in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach This study used a qualitative approach to collect and analyse data to answer the research questions. Seven youth social entrepreneurs were interviewed until data saturation was met. An interview guide was created for the purposes of conducting the interviews. The interviews were recorded using a voice recorder. Data were transcribed verbatim and grouped in order to identify the codings, categories and themes. Findings The findings show the career transition to become a social entrepreneur, as well as the major challenges that youth social entrepreneurs face, which include acclimatising to the life and career of a social entrepreneur and not getting support from family. Practical implications The study findings are also significant for presenting valuable data on the experience of the developing social entrepreneur. The qualitative nature of the study provides valuable experiential insight into the lives and struggles of young social entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The findings will allow local authorities and social entrepreneurship regulatory agencies to design initiatives and plan actions intended to overcome the challenges. Originality/value This study makes an original contribution by showing that the process of career development as a social entrepreneur has given meaning to the informants. Despite presenting many challenges, social entrepreneurship has reinforced the role of youth social entrepreneurs, especially in relation to social responsibility.

Involvement in leadership activities is one of the approaches that enhances Positive Youth Development (PYD) among youths. The focus on mentoring process in a leadership program serves as the basis for developing these positive youth elements and has the potential to increase youth's readiness to lead Youth leadership development is a primary focus in Malaysia's development agenda as outlined in the Malaysia Youth Policy (2015) and Youth Societies and Youth Development Act 668 (2019). Research and practice concur that the involvement of young leaders can be strengthened through wider exposure and professional training through mentoring. Mentoring offers a unique learning process that has been shown to enhance youth development outcomes and strengthening competence of youth leaders. The study was conducted to explore the identity development process in promoting developmental assets through the youth leadership mentoring. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach informed by the case study paradigm that involved 13 informants through in-depth interview data collection, participant observation and document analysis. Empirical findings from the study show that identity development resulted from the mentoring process through the value of tolerance, promotes empathy and shaping philanthropy spirit among youth leaders. In conclusion, data indicated that mentoring clearly has the potential to constitute the process of identity building among youth, and this process contributes to the development of their leadership capacities.

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Universities in Malaysia are putting a never-ending effort to ensure academics' growth through strong leadership. Leadership program such as mentor-mentee is being rehighlighted to help faculties prosper. However, the success of such effort highly depends on leadership style that is not inclined towards hierarchy and bureaucracy. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the dynamics of leadership styles (transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and laissez-faire leadership) exhibited by academics in a faculty of a Malaysian university. This paper offers a descriptive result describing the most practiced leadership styles among the academics. The results indicate that most academics exhibit high level of both transformational and transactional leadership behaviours with the latter being the most frequently used leadership style.