11/04/2005

malaysia, 60,000 female malay graduates unemployed

the 60,000 female malay graduates registering for employment is a govt policy that has gone seriously wrong. and the number could possibly be more. what is more pertinent is that despite the reporter claiming that the graduates possessed irrelevant degrees, which at first impression were either religious studies or some cultural or artistic subjects, but not true. these were graduates with degrees in business studies or information technologies. very marketable degrees. their problem is the inability to converse in the english language at a reasonable level. this is only the tip of an enormous problem of a govt policy that emphasises on political objectives at the expense of economic considerations. the malaysian govt finds it acceptable to level down, to dispense away with real talented people with technical abilities and think that by awarding as many bumiputras with a piece of paper and all problems will be solved. what they could not comprehend is that in a world that is increasingly knowledge based, you really need technical expertise to be relevant and competitive. the latest time higher education supplement (THES) is a rude awakening of sort. the premier university, the university of melaya, has its ranking dropped from 89 to 169. and compares this with nus and ntu at 22 and 48 place respectively, it is quite stunning and embarrassing. the malaysian govt will need to do some serious soul searching and take some decisive and painful actions to rectify a generation of errorneous affirmative actions. in terms of mistakes in educational policies, it will take a generation or more to feel the damage and it will take more than a generation to catch up for the lost time.

4 comments:

terrette said...

interesting topic. could you provide a link or reference to the original article or study?

thanks.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

hi terrette, the 60,000 unemployed graduates is reported in today's straits times. the ranking of um can be found in an article in www.littlespeck.com.

cheers

Anonymous said...

the quality of education in malaysia is really bad. firstly, the students that are admitted into the universities are not of good quality because the primary and secondary school systems dont produce students that are able to master english well enough to meet market demands. secondly, the universities themselves do not have courses of high quality which are internationally recognised .When the inputs are poor as well as the input transformation process, it is thus not surprising that the output is of poor quality as well. the malaysian government needs to revamp the entire education system, from primary up to university level. only then will malaysian graduates be more marketable.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

what had happened is a very vicious cycle that will eventually destroyed education in malaysia.

the first problem is to pump in all the average and below average students, which therefore guarantees a very average quality of graduates coming out.

this is compounded by filling the academic positons with equally average academics, thus further lowering the quality of the education. poor teachers and poor students make a potent formula for poor standards and products.

no good academics of any reputation will want to join the universities. so what you have is a formula of inbreeding of the average with the average.

the malaysian govt must seriously rethink on their policies and objectives of education and the education of its population to achieve economic goals and social progress.