Rush to set up private varsities led to high number of unemployed grads, says Maszlee

 

Former education minister Maszlee Malik said the highest number of the unemployed were Bumiputeras who received their tertiary education.

PETALING JAYA: The rush to produce more degree holders in the 1990s by starting too many private universities has led to the current poor quality and high number of unemployed graduates, said former education minister Maszlee Malik.

Calling for fresh solutions to problems faced by the country’s higher education institutions today, he reminded the authorities that they were still relying on methods used 20 years ago, which had actually caused all these problems.

Citing a private Bank Negara Malaysia report, Maszlee said the highest number of the unemployed were Bumiputeras who received their tertiary education. For the other communities, the unemployed were those who did not pursue a university degree.

“We are still using solutions from the 1990s, when all these problems began, for our current situation,” he said at an online conference on Malaysian higher education today.

“We came out with a lot of private universities just to produce more graduates without looking at the consequences of that policy.”

He said this had resulted in lots of issues involving the repayment of loans to the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN), quality of graduates and unemployment.

Maszlee added that new solutions were badly needed now, especially with the government’s focus on the fourth industrial revolution (IR4.0) and the current Covid-19 situation.

He said this could involve bringing technical and vocational education and training (TVET) to the mainstream to help lighten the burden on universities and produce more skilled graduates. - FMT