jobless, unemployed, unemployable

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has expressed concern over the high number of unemployed graduates in the country, estimated to be in the range of 80,000 and growing. Mainstream media echoes this here and here. This situation is nothing new. For countless years, we have been lamenting on the declining standards of tertiary education in the country. The culmination of all our opinions and discussions seem to converge toward this point. Are Malaysian graduates simply unemployed, or unemployable?

Opinions from Malaysians seem to have several points. Here is the first, which states that it's the fault of the graduates themselves that they can't seem to find their dream job. According to the letter, Malaysian graduates paint a mental picture of the perfect job, i.e. high paying posts that enable them to wear power suits, comfortable office desk jobs that do not require hard work and sweat. In short, according to the letter, Malaysian graduates avoid jobs which are dangerous, dirty and demeaning.

The second opinion seems to point toward the fault of the tertiary institutions that are responsible for ensuring the education and learning process of our graduates. The context is of course the highly controversial blanket ruling established by a certain local university that forces all its students to stay on campus. The letter expresses deep concern that the university authorities may be too strict in imposing laws such as this, which effectively eliminates the possibility of freedom of choice on the part of the student.

The root cause

In reality, actually several factors are at play. The situation starts to worsen from the moment a child is put into national schools. The medium of instruction throughout is Bahasa Malaysia, the official language of our country. Only recently had there been new regulations set up that imposed the learning of science and mathematics subjects in English to better equip students with the necessary skills to survive in the big, big world. However, there are cases of English teachers having to teach the language in Malay, thereby reducing the effectiveness of communication in English. Moreover, teachers who speak the language outside of the classroom are deemed as show-offs.

Of course, the problem doesn't stop there. Our education syllabus is very exam-centric. Just look at the number of examinations one has to go through these days: PTS (3rd year), UPSR (6th year), PMR (3rd form), SPM (5th form), STPM (6th form). Students (and parents) these days pack in as many extra classroom lessons in endless pursuit of that string of A's to decorate the results slips and certificates. Spoon feeding is a prevalent culture in our schools; our youth are not encouraged to think, but rather to conform.

You would think that the situation improves when one moves into tertiary education. After all, there must be some merit in an open environment where intellectual discussions are welcome rather than shunned. Unfortunately, this climate does not exist in Malaysia, with the existence of arcane laws that prohibit students from showing their true potentials. Lecturers are disinterested with their students' performance, instead concentrating on their own political mileage within the university's beauracracy. University syllabus does not reflect the true working environments outside, and students are cocooned within the safe shell of the tertiary education, believing that the world owes them a living once they graduate.

The final insult

So the government realizes that somehow, local tertiary institutions of higher learning do not seem to have the capability of producing graduates that are workforce-ready. However, instead of fixing the root cause of the problem, the government decides to implement "patchwork solutions" to "fix" the problem from the outside. One wonders how many "well-connected" individuals benefit from this kind of extra training.

I am of course referring to the Skim Latihan Graduan that aims to retrain unemployable graduates with relevant skills necessary for joining any decent company. Amazing, how our country works. Instead of taking time and effort to investigate why graduates are of such deplorable quality, the responsible ministry introduces a shortcut way to patch up a job poorly done.

Thus, it becomes a common sight. Graduates emerging from our flawed education system are immediately unemployable, thus providing them with the prerequisite of enrolling in the said training scheme. For 3 months, the graduate undergoes ICT-related training to equip him with the necessary skills and knowledge to be a competent worker. Indeed, time and resources are wasted.

Over reliance on foreign help?

Following the recent eviction of hundreds of thousands of illegal Indonesian workers, Malaysia seeks to employ 100,000 Pakistani workers to fill the void. If these jobs could be offered first to Malaysian unemployable graduates, we would solve 2 problems with one proverbial stone. Nonetheless, it is up to the graduates as to whether or not they would like to be seen in the construction or waste management sectors. Whatever steps the country is taking to ensure lower dependence on foreign workers, I surely hope that they would consider hiring our local jobless youths into these markets.

Nip the problem in the bud. Go after the root causes, not mere symptoms. I'm sure that there are many success stories to be heard from our local graduates. Let us not restrict ourselves to one dead-ended path, but be open to alternatives in everything we do, including education.