1% increase in Malaysian graduates employability rate

Graduate Tracer Study 2016 reported that Malaysian graduates have better employability and marketability rate this year compare to last year.

The Higher Education Ministry has been trying to improve the quality of technical and vocational educational training (TVET) by improving the teaching and training material, improving facilities and building industrial relationships with industry leaders across the country.

TVET institutions are becoming more successful in attracting more students and producing more marketable graduates. This year’s graduates from Community Colleges have recorded the highest marketability rate at 97.2%. Graduates of polytechnics have recorded 88.6% marketability rate and graduates of the Malaysian Technical University Network (MTUN) have 87.1% marketability rate.

In a statement yesterday, the ministry said that the average rate of employability of graduates from higher learning institutions in Malaysia is at 77.2% this year, a 1.1% improvement from last year’s.

These numbers were obtained from the Graduate Tracer Study 2016 report conducted by the Higher Education Ministry, which concluded on November 22^nd with a total of 224,575 graduates participating in the study.

The study found that 56.54% (126,966) of the participants were able to find a job within six months after completing studies. Additionally, around 14.3% of graduates were able to successfully further their education, a little more than 2% chose to improve their skills, while  4% of graduates awaiting job placements. However, 22.8% of graduates are yet to find a job.

As for the employability of graduates based on their field of study, graduates from the field of education have 88.3% employability, graduates of the technical field have 80.2% employability and graduates of information and communication technology (ICT) have 78.4% employability rate.

The ministry pledges to work on continuing to increase the rate of employment of graduates through more collaboration between universities and industries.

The proposed collaboration comes under the Intervention Programme and Industry Centre of Excellence (ICoE) and Entrepreneurship Programme in collaboration with the Permodalan Usahawan Nasional Berhad, Bumiputra Agenda Steering Unit (Teraju) and Malaysian Technology Development Corporation.

The following is considered for the improvement efforts:

• Bringing in successful and competent leaders of corporations and entrepreneurs to share their experience and expertise in their respective industry with students on public institutions.
• The implementation of 2u2i programme which a study programme designed to provide 2 years of university education and 2 years of industrial experience and on the job education.
• The introduction and implementation of the Integrated Cumulative Grade Point Average (iCGPA) to assess the ability of students in 9 key attributes.