Graduates to get employability boost

KUALA LUMPUR: The Graduates Tracker Study system has indicated a total of 54,867 graduates were unemployed in 2015 in the period of three months before convocation.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said the number translated to 23.9% out of the 229,568 graduates surveyed in the graduates' employability study.
The benchmark used in Malaysia to evaluate graduates is significantly shorter compared with a similar international study, which uses a longer standard of one year.
"The rate of employed graduates would increase if the one year benchmark is used in our study," he told the Dewan Rakyat during a question and answer session.
He was responding to a query from Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin (PKR - Bukit Katil) who had asked the ministry to state the details of graduates who were unemployed until February 2016.
Idris said the ministry has initiated the Graduate Employability programme to overcome the issue of unemployment among graduates.
"This programme is aimed at improving graduates' added value in aspects such as professional qualifications, self appearance and personality to assist students securing jobs relevant with employers' requirements," he said.
"The programme is also supported with the 1Malaysia Training Scheme and Talent Corp," he added.
He said the ministry had also initiated a programme that allows university students to venture into entrepreneurship by opening their businesses on campus.
Idris highlighted the 2U2I programme, where a student would spend two years in university and another two years in the industry, would be implemented in Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Universiti Putra Malaysia in September.
"The English profeciency programme has also indicated an improvement, with students registering Band 3 in Malaysian University
English Test increasing by 27%," he said.
"We hope that with additional programmes, we will be able to further improve graduates' employability," he added.