FROM SKILL TRANSFER TO MARKET LEADERSHIP: A LONGITUDINAL EVALUATION OF THE BATIK CHEMPAKA INTERVENTION AT PPDK MERBOK

Abstract

Evaluations of disability-inclusive economic empowerment programmes in Malaysia rarely extend beyond the intervention period itself. Yusoff and Abdul Rahman (2025), reporting on a batik motif development programme at a Pusat Pemulihan Dalam Komuniti (PPDK) centre for persons with disabilities, documented gains in skill and confidence but were unable to measure sustained economic outcomes. This study addresses that gap. In the intervention, delivered under the University Social Responsibility (USR) and Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP) frameworks of Universiti Teknologi MARA, trainees designed original batik motifs which were then carved into commercial printing blocks and used to produce items sold through the Economic Empowerment Programme (EEP) that supports 32 PPDK centres in Kedah. Drawing on all monthly EEP sales returns for the 2025 calendar year together with two decades of centre-level historical records, we set the post-intervention performance of the participating centre against three reference points: its own 2024 result, its own pre-intervention history, and the 31 other centres in the state network. PPDK Merbok recorded RM 10,288 in sales during 2025, a 76 per cent increase on the RM 5,836 recorded in 2024 and approximately eleven times its pre-intervention annual average of RM 917 (2004–2022). More importantly, with programme structure held constant across the 32 centres in Kedah, PPDK Merbok accounted for 28 per cent of state-wide EEP sales for the year and ranked first or second in eight of its nine active months. Because programme structure, administrative support and trainee profiles are broadly consistent across the network, the findings are consistent with a positive contribution of the intervention, although a single-case design cannot establish causality. Read through the capabilities approach and the Triple Helix framework, the results indicate that pairing a university partner with a master artisan and a government welfare anchor supplied the design capability, market-ready product and institutional continuity the centre previously lacked, and that the gains extend beyond the immediate skills and confidence reported by Yusoff and Abdul Rahman (2025). On this evidence, PPDK Merbok is a promising candidate for replication elsewhere in the state network.