Too many universities among causes of unemployment, says weekly

Updated 3 years ago · Published on 11 Apr 2021 12:51PM · 4 Comments

There are 777,500 unemployed graduates in the country, according to the Statistics Department. This could be because the graduates’ skills and knowledge fail to meet the demands of employers. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, April 11, 2021.

HAVING too many universities is one of the causes of graduate unemployment, reported Mingguan Malaysia today.

The report said Malaysia only needs 15-20 universities to cater for its population of 32 million. This includes both private and public universities.

Prof Dr Ibrahim Komoo of the Academy of Professors Malaysia told the Malay weekly that private tertiary institutes have become a business for owners.

He said as the number of universities increases, the number of graduates also rises, including those are below par.

He believed that each state should have only one or two universities while five to six public universities will suffice for the entire nation.

“These private universities, colleges and university colleges prioritise profit over the quality of education and skills,” he said.

Therefore, he said, the government should control their growth to ensure that those who gain admission are academically gifted and not because they have money.

He said public universities should also look at technical knowledge and skills development to cater for the demands of the job market.

“Some public university graduates merely passed and awarded a degree. However, they failed to communicate well during interviews and their general knowledge is poor. Who wants to employ them?” he said.

Recently, the Muslim Teachers’ Alliance (iGURU) urged the government to review courses offered by tertiary education institutions as many of their graduates fail to secure jobs.

According to the Statistics Department, there are 777,500 unemployed graduates in the country.

Commenting on this, Ibrahim said it is unreasonable to say that the courses offered by the institutions are irrelevant and do not guarantee a job.

Meanwhile, Dr Madeline Berma, a Malaysian Science Academy fellow, said the number of universities is not an issue but instead the quality of education is questionable.

“There are more universities in Europe than in Malaysia, but this does not mean the graduates in Europe lack quality,” she said, adding that despite the high number of universities in developed countries, they are still able to produce Harvard-standard graduates.

However, she noted that in Malaysia, there is a mismatch between the requirements of the job market and the courses offered. – April 11, 2021.

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Comments

  • Our education budget as a percentage of our yearly budget is the highest yet our standard of education comparatively getting lower and lower compared to neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Vietnam.. Why? Because we alllowed mediocre candidates to become a teacher to teach our children.. The minimum qualification to go to maktab perguruan is a job.. Instead of choosing top 5% of the candidates, we allowed any Tom, Dick and Harry with minimum qualifications to become a teacher. If these teachers failed to do well in schools themselves, do you think they can be a good teacher to our children and grandchildren.. A generation of Malaysians wasted because of this minimum qualification which NOT THE TOP 5% ACHIEVERS IN OUR OWN SYSTEM.

    Posted 3 years ago by Bitcoin Mining · Reply

  • wow, never knew the unemployment was so high and truly an eye opener

    i always thought that it was the population at large but after reading the article it seems to be graduates instead

    scary figures and pray they secure jobs for their emotional/mental health

    god bless

    Posted 3 years ago by Warrick singh dhalial · Reply

  • Who's great idea was that to have more uni here's than to produce quality graduates.

    Posted 3 years ago by Teruna Kelana · Reply

  • The root cause of graduate unemployment is that the economy has not grown sufficiently to absorb the influx of fresh graduates (and school leavers) every year. This is mainly due to the policies enacted by the successive governments over the last 60 odd years, policies that are endorsed by the electorate otherwise the same parties would not have been reelected over and over again.

    Posted 3 years ago by Yoon Kok · Reply