What’s the so BIG deal with unemployable graduates?
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005 | 1:52 am @ SK
On Sunday, Abdul Razak Ahmad of NST, wrote about the unemployable graduates by examining the reasons lying beneath.
As usual, whenever there was any so-called “interesting” issue raised by the media, I can’t help but to observe that, many contacts on my Yahoo Messenger start to put those related links as status, while some would be busy forwarding those links to the group, as a way they think that can “contribute consciousness” to their communities.
While some start to blame on the inefficiences of authority in concern, some will pinpoint to hell lot of reasons and excuses, condeming this and that.
However, very unfortunately that, no one actually mirrorring themselves and ask what they had actually done for the past few years during their university years.
The fact is that, Malaysians should feel lucky enough that we’re being provided with near-free education. No matter how suck the education system is also, government must not be the only culprit to bear the real blame too.
Why?
Just take a look at a few examples shared in the article. It’s simple enough to make you realise that, if you’re incompetitive enough and remain incompatible to this society, it’s very sorry to say that, society will have to exclude you.
Come on, we’re talking about globalisation nowadays, we’re talking about K-Economy nowadays and you still expect government to spoon-feed you until the day you say goodbye to this world?
No way ….
So, the solution is, equip urself well, be prepared to enroll yourself into this society. There’s nothing wrong to know more than what you’re suppose to know, by becoming a super genius in memorising theory, pull out with a super four-flat won’t guarantee your future career path. It’s much much more than that, really.
Meanwhile, I remember a reader of this blog mentioned that, “if you’re not proactive, you’re reactive”. So, for those who like to complain fish from hell till heaven, give it a thought, whether your words are justifying your action?
Talk is always cheap. After all, what you have actually done to IMPROVE the current situation?
I hope this will serve a good reminder to every typical Chinese, especially those that I had known.
And wholeheartedly, no offence, IF you’re one.
March 22nd, 2005 at 9:19 am
The unemployment of graduates figure is alarmning. Once again, it seems that we are all not targeting at the structure or the root fo the problem. Typically, most of us are what we called the Fire Fighther. We puts out fire when the fire is up but never bother to go deeper and see what started the problem and dig it out.
To me, mainly it is not because of the course offered or the lack of opportunity. In fact, all my friends are fully employed. Why some are so attractive to their employers and some doesn’t seems to have anything even after so long?
My own reason is that, it lies within the student themselves. What happen now is the reflection of what you do in your pass. What have they been doing in their pass (uni years)?
Even this is not important. The most important is that one must understand, What you do NOW, is what you will reap in the future? So, what are they doing? Are they still doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result? (This is what some call insanity) Do you think that at a personal level you do not change but with the help of external resources (eg Government) you can propel to the next plane? Ponder deeply!
Sorry to say, according to a survey done in “Millionaire Next Door”, althought it is set in the US, but I truely belief it is applicable in Malaysia as time and time again, it has been showing right in front of our eyes, is that education doesn’t mean anything in one’s success. But I must say that certain knowledge and skills do help you go further faster.
Lastly, I remember this from one of my millionaire mentor, Glen. He told me this,
Success = Knowledge X Attitude
You have all the knowledge but 0 (bad) attitude, you might as well be a lottery winner.
March 22nd, 2005 at 9:24 am
Actually, I do not think there’s a problem with only unemployed graduates. I think there’s much much more problems with employed graduates. Having a job doesn’t mean that you do not belong to the unemployed portion of the pack. I’ve laid the basis for my case, you go figure out the rest.
Graduates today, are pretty much ignorant, shallow and think the world owns the a living. Very much like me. The only thing I ever do at work is to talk cock. Talk big big, ball shake shake. Talk is easy mah, don’t have to work so hard. Talking can also bring you places! Right?! Even now at work I’m writing all these useless things in this blog which many of my pack consider a waste of time and “jiak pa bo kang coh”.
Then when opportunities are missed, I will start blaming the authorities lah, the society lah, for being unfair towards people like me. Very easy!
Oo yeah, I forgot, aside from talking cock and wasting time pretty well, I’m quite good at Google also… Which is something people form our pack thinks it’s a dumb thing to do when we can just questions the experts and Gods.
March 22nd, 2005 at 9:27 am
See, I have so much grammar and spelling errors in my previous comment… My England no powderful…
And yeah Justin, I have a very bad attitude, not to mention I have totally no knowledge at all… But I can talk cock!
March 22nd, 2005 at 11:17 am
Well said, some pieces of ENGLAND COCK here. ;P
“Sorry to say, according to a survey done in “Millionaire Next Door”, althought it is set in the US, but I truely belief it is applicable in Malaysia as time and time again, it has been showing right in front of our eyes, is that education doesn’t mean anything in one’s success. But I must say that certain knowledge and skills do help you go further faster.”
Even “The Millionaire Mind” by Thomas J. Stanley also say so. Should everyone give it a thought then, again? Yes.
“I do not think there’s a problem with only unemployed graduates. I think there’s much much more problems with employed graduates. Having a job doesn’t mean that you do not belong to the unemployed portion of the pack. I’ve laid the basis for my case, you go figure out the rest.
Graduates today, are pretty much ignorant, shallow and think the world owns them a living.”
To those who’re employed and if you think that you’re far superior than others/peers with what you so-called “high” pay, think twice than those who’re unemployed. You might as well sink deeper, without you realising that, just because you’re IGNORANT enough.
March 22nd, 2005 at 5:17 pm
i recevied this blog from one of my friend.
does unemployable grads mean somebody who doesnt not deserver to be employed? i believe it’s caused by that person itself who doesnt posses required skills. so there’s nothing others can do (including govt) that can significantly change the situation. it all depends on that particular human beeing.
may be the more worried scenario is unemployed graduate who have ordinary skills but can not land a deserve job. is this particular statistic increasing in number? i have no idea. but as far as i know it cant be hard for someone having skills trying to find worthy job ( just dont complain so much on salary for fresh grad ;p )
but then again, even tough the number of unemployed/unemployable grads are increasing, this is not a worrying fact.
for years, govt has been trying to increase the number of tertiary institution. a few years back, i read newspaper telling govt was developing malaysia as ‘education hub’.
people across countries are coming to study. colleges are given permit. i cant recall how many colleges we have in this country. ( add that with universities).
every institution tries to get more students. and the more students get graduated every year. if you put economic into consideration, no private institution want to hold students to study longer, it just doesnt give more profit.
so this all brings down to ‘more graduates for every year’. as the consequences, you have more unemployed graduates. why? i believe the economic has not been able to provide enough job vacancy to absorb those grads.
in my opinion, in term of quantity, malaysia has produced mroe than enough. you can have tremendous figure in yearly report for msc project, k-economy, bla bla bla.
govt needs to look into quality aspect.
but this is hard. why?
if you increase the quality (it means study become harder), then students complain. govt will see a drop in As scored by student. yearly figure report on will look bad :). and also, we might have an extra effect that we are not producing enough ‘k worker’ ( to the hell what it mean by k-worker)
my conclusion:
increase the general education quality ( including high school), but there could be some pain to endure ;)
\
but then again, this is so much govt can do. all depends on the people.
March 22nd, 2005 at 5:37 pm
Exactly, quality plays a main role, isn’t it?
It’s all about the learning attitude, the learning curve that matters.
people must understand that, honeymoon year is over, definitely over.
March 22nd, 2005 at 6:15 pm
AverageCoder speaks everything of what I wanted to say about myself, a lame grad.
I don’t have the appropriate skills nor attitude because I want a big big big big big big big paycheck by only talking cock!
Of course lah, I GRADUATE WORRRRRRR…
March 23rd, 2005 at 10:21 am
One of my millionaire mentor once told me, in fact, Robert Kiyosaki also said it in his books, can’t remember which one, that successful people do not work for money.
There is two reasons to this statement:
1. Rich people invest their money so that the money can work for them.
2. Rich people work because they love to work because it’s their fulfillment, their passion. They want to learn. They want to know.
The second statement is the statement which I would to comment about as it is rather close to the subject of unemployment.
“just dont complain so much on salary for fresh grad ;p” - averagecoder
In Robert’s book Rich Dad Poor Dad, as I can recalled, Robert told a story where his rich dad was asked him to work for him with a lil pay. Everyone around him was critizing either him or his rich dad. So, one fine day, he had enough of such comment, he stormed into his rich dad’s office and told him about how he felt. Rich dad, then told Robert, “I got a good news for you, now you work for FREE.” Working for lil money sounds bad but working for free is even worst. However, Robert did take the offer. And with that, he became a millionaire many times over.
At the time, which is when Robert was doing his job for a pay, he did what he need to do for a pay. His focus is on the money that he will be getting at the end of the month. But, when he is now working for free, all the anticipation for the money is gone. He has no money to focus on. So all he was doing is to do the job bestowed to him as best as he possibly could.
What happened to Robert is that, during the time when he worked for free, and when his focus is on his job, he learned about the job a lot. And this also sparks his brain to think about the job more vigorously.
So when he is equipped with all the knowlegde and skills, he can then reuse them in his business in later years which made him a millionaire. What happen is that, he gain all the skills necessary to be successful, money then became a by product.
Another story is that, most ppl complain that their employers never pay them enough. This is a question once thrown to me which made me think deeply, “Does the company pay anyone else higher that yours?”. The question struck me that, I need to be continously learning. Learning both the soft skills and the hard skills.
This applies to the unemployed grads. When we grad, are we looking for which company offer a higher pay or in most cases, which company offers better remuneration packages? Or are we looking at which company can provide you better learning experience for you to propel in the direction of your goal?
March 23rd, 2005 at 11:04 am
No no no, Soon Kheng and Justin, both of you wrong already…
Boss everyday ask me to work work work work work, of course I want a bigger paycheck lah, you think I so cheap ah? Less than 2K punya job, who wants?!
Earn big big money baru people will respect you mah, I tell people I earn RM1500 per month, people look at me like “eeyeer, what job are you at? penyapu jalan also richer than you, these jobs are not for humans one”.. If I can tell people I earn RM5000 per month as a fresh grad, then people will ooohh ahhh respect me… then juniors will say “wah wah wah you see that senior, he work in MCB International leh, geng leh, earn big big buy big car and house leh… fuiyo…”
Then there’s this thing about credential mah, you don’t have to earn your own credential if you work in big big big multinationals. You can use your company saying “neh, I work for CJB Global Services leh”, then people will terus assume that you are very geng in skills already… you don’t have to do anything mah… don’t need to work hard like shit to get what skills or knowledge, talk cock can already!
I am not looking at anything, who cares about career future? Money is the most important thing. Big big money means everything!!! Work so hard what for? No need lah, talk cock can already! I am a GRADUATE with a 4 FLAT DEGREE from a GENG UNIVERSITY leh, of course I deserve better than a stupid RM2K paycheck lah…
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OK, End of Benglish (Ah Beng English), I have again lay another foundation for my point on this issue. You can build your thoughts on top of it.
March 28th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
Gonna be a long comment here. Alright, thanks all the comments on the different factors about the topic - unemployable graduates.
I keep a different view point but that doesn’t mean I disagree entirely what had already been posted by some commentors. I believe very strongly what happened today could be tracked back to a programme which was plotted some time ago - a plan to increase the number of certificate holders.
It was government’s notion to have more Malaysians to study until tertiary education to at least have certain certificates in their profile. Subsequently, the new education system try to keep students in school for a longer period, hence the admission for tertiary was dropped to a mere 2 credits. Yes, you hear me right, 2 credits and you can be admitted to private higher education institution!
Last week, this admission requirement was changed to 1 credit. Yes no s, singular! Alot to ponder upon, a wrong plan or a wrong execution?
I would say it’s both a wrong plan and execution. Yes the notion of the programme is something very positive but loosening the admission requirement just isn’t a wrong thing to do. What’s the point of keeping students who couldn’t even pass their high school examiniation moderately enough in higher learning institution? Not to mention tertiary education will impose greater challenge to them whom already have difficulties coping with classes and lessons in secondary schools?
I am not surprised even when the current number of unemployed graduates is doubled in the next 3 years since the current admission requirement is 1 credit.
Certainly, the plan was the culprit. It’s not foreign to see alot of bad plans or good plans with bad exeuction around. Let’s take another close example, PTPTN.
We all know PTPTN had failed to collect back the loans from great amount of students. The body was established 8 years ago and recently it declared critical situation and announced to the public it had to resolve to kwsp to be able to continue offering loans to the students. First and foremost, cut all the excuses of system was not computerized, hard to keep track of loan takers…etc. It’s all lame execuses judging the fact that if the notion is to give out study loans which carries a relatively low interest rate to students to help them in their studies, there should already be plan on how to collect back the loans.
What’s next, chain effect! Loosen the admission requirements; more students whom couldn’t study in tertiary school last time managed to get admitted this time; they apply study loans from PTPTN and when they;ve finally graduated, they could’t find a job and hence they couldn’t pay the loan. Aha… well sometimes maybe should we ask, isn’t the help that is offered is too overwhelming? I believe help should be given with a certain benchmark, anything over that will murder the basic senses of survival of the help takers…..
Alright, abit of the topic. My brain got a little work out when reading some of the comments here. The first one is about making money, something keeps me wondering for a while, how making money comes into picture of unemployment. Yes wages is what you receive for what you do, if you are not even’t employed where comes the wages?
Success stories are nice to tell and being heard. But let’s take a break, if Robert Kiyosaki is not a millionaire today, would you be bothered to listen to his stories. Best of all, would he be even bothered to tell his stories? Can you be sure the things he has done was never done by another earthlings?
Yes successful men do share certain identical traits but I think it takes a lot more to be successful than knowing what those traits are.
“Just dont complain so much on salary for fresh grad ;p” - averagecoder
Yes, fresh graduates should be grateful and appreciate the chance they receive when they are offered a job. Engaging in a work is a whole new level of learning experience, We should always apreciate the opportunity and make the fullest out of it.
However, getting a high pay isn’t a filthy opportunity at all for a fresh graduates. Ignorance doesn’t make its root in getting a better pay job; if you are ignorant, you are still ignorant with a low pay, worse still, unemployed. There’s one quote, products with great sales have great potential to improve.
The problem in local IT job market is, employers do not exercise employee retention plan. This is a pathetic fact; the china man policy, “You wanna leave, you leave. I can hire another guy to do the job with the same pay”.
Last but not least, let’s hope our education system could improve and never to forget the mentality of the students. Don’t be overly choosey in looking for your first job.