Thursday, November 30, 2006

UiTM Graduates More Employable

Now I do not want to get into a slanging war with Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) students and alumni with this post, there's enough of that sort going on in my earlier popular post on "UiTM - World Class?". Please also note that this post is not a slight at UiTM graduates as I'm fully convinced that there are good students and well qualified graduates from the University.

I thought it would be interesting to highlight the contradiction between the statement issued by the Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Mustapa Mohamed yesterday, versus a set of statistics released by the Deputy Minister of Human Resources, Datuk Abdul Rahman Bakar (blogged here) back in July this year.

According to Datuk Mustapa, UiTM graduates are "more employable than other local graduates due to their strong command of English."
He said the curriculum in UiTM stressed on the importance of English to produce students proficient in the language.

“The employment rate of UiTM graduates is generally higher than that of other local graduates because they are good in English"... Besides, Mustapa added, the university offered hands-on courses that were relevant to the job market. He said the students were taught entrepreneurial skills.
However, based on statistics released by Datuk Abdul Rahman earlier on the unemployed graduates in Malaysia, the breakdown showed UiTM as having the highest number of unemployed graduates, as shown in the table below.
In fact, UiTM has more than double the number of unemployed graduates (16.2%) relative to the next highest university Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) (7.6%). Even after taking into account the significantly larger campus in UiTM, the statistics by Datuk Mustapa's fellow colleague doesn't provide any justification at all to his claim that UiTM graduates are more employable than those of other local universities.

There has been a spate of Ministers contradicting and correcting each other in and out of the Parliament recently - Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and his deputy, Datuk Noh Omar on new Chinese primary schools, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Awang Adek and Minister in Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Effendi Norwawi and others which I can't recall off-hand. Are they just displaying their incompetency as well as the unreliability of government data and statistics, or are they misleading the Parliament and the public?

On a separate note, it is worth noting that UiTM appears to have quietly removed its proclaimation that it's a "world class university" from its website, as blogged earlier, but have since termed itself as a "world class socio-economic achievement", which is probably less controversial. I've also been informed that UiTM has changed its vision to "become World Class University by 2020", according to reader and student, Khairul Idzwan, although I can't seem to find that reference on the website. At the very least, it appears that the UiTM administration is now a fair bit more grounded in its proclaimations, irrespective of whether my earlier blog post has played a part in the change. ;)

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

Give em hell TP ! :D

clk said...

Using the table above, there is a category called "Others" consisting 39%. If we have M'sian Public Unis, M'sian Private Unis/Colleges and Foreign Unis classified individually, wonder what's left....maybe a uni on Mars?

Anonymous said...

when lulu's clerk passed away, lulu had to look for replacement. there were quite a number of uitm degree and diploma holders. one chap, grad in accountancy, was working as a cook. the rest were either in clerical-type of jobs or unemployed.
lulu's grouse with the govt is that they keep building election promise unis and graduating people who by right aren't graduatable. even their spm results were not impressive. now they're in a limbo - not good enough for real grad employment but too good for anything beneath it.
this is the mess that the govt has created, and after so many rounds of training unemployed grads, the situation has not changed.

Anonymous said...

Dear TP
Keep up the good work. Though your blog cant change much on policies but it is an effective sentinel.
Definitely your blog and its readers have done much to bring the nation to attention
And mind you, you are not even paid a single sen for this honarary work

Dont worry TP you have your loyal and enlightened followers behind you

WE DEFINITELY KNOW WHERE TO PUT OUR
"X" IN THE NEXT ELECTION!

Anonymous said...

UITM graduates' English better?

I heard them speak and write, and I beg to differ

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

you cant live in the safety and comfort of your dreams you spun...sooner or later you have to wake up and face reality..

you cannot forever lie and twist the facts or the truth, for one day it will hit you right in your nose

sleep well, dream well umnoputras

Anonymous said...

can't help but laugh. i have an English Language teacher, proudly proclaiming himself as UiTM grad. We think he speaks German.

Anonymous said...

No, no....no! Your English language teacher from UITM is not speaking German but Kelantanese version of English

Muaha ha ha !

Anonymous said...

it is indeed true that uitm has the hoghest number of unemployed grads. however, it is also true that uitm has the most employable grads. this is due to the fact that all uitm courses are thought in english and english is the compulsory subject for the students.

my friends and i had a debate on this issue before this issue was raised up in the parliament. we were debating on this issue and we found out that uitm has the highest number of unemployed grads due to the 'superior' number of students. it is a well-known fact that uitm has more than 100 000 students.

Anonymous said...

Mr khairul idzwan kamarudzaman, so are you implying that UiTM graduates have superior English command, just because the courses are taught in English? May i know who are the lecturers? You can't really expect something lame will create something good. I really hate people who don't admit their weaknesses and keep on arguing and twisting the facts. Sick.

Anonymous said...

be professional in ur criticm plz. whatever the case is, it all depend on oneself. nobody is tooooo superior than the other. all have weakness and all have strengths too. 'nuff said. stop all this racism thingy..that is just plain SHALLOW-minded u guys. English language is a skill. some are born to speak while others trained to speak. there's a clear distinction between both. i am a uitm student..and i am not for nor am i against uitm. just be humane about it. whatever the case is, MANNER matters.
thank you

Anonymous said...

TQ to you too for highlighting manners being important in this dialogue

Anonymous said...

what's with this blog?do you think by laughing at those who are willing to learn and improve their english (in uitm particularly)can help to reduce the amount of unemployed graduates in malaysia's public universities?get alive and be more matured.

Anonymous said...

"Now I do not want to get into a slanging war with Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) students and alumni with this post"

i would say, D'OH!.............

Anonymous said...

I was a student there. Quite a number do speak perfect english....and they make the 1%. Yup, the 99% left actually can only think about marrying someone and are racists

Anonymous said...

no body's perfect..only God has all the perfections.

i dont believe in the figures given by the ministers on how many students are already employed and how many are still jobless..how can they know? even if the number is just as assumption, it is still not making sense..i think which universities u graduated from is not important but how you sell yourself and how competent you are, are the values that many big companies are looking for..being proficient in english is a bonus and there no worry if you dont speak well as nowadays, theres mushrooms of language center to choose from..

tepuk dada tanya ilmu..

cheers

MoozaMohd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Recently finished my A-Levels. I could have applied for local U & go for matrikulasi, bt i jst DIDN'T to. Why? I'm not even that rich to go private, but I did anywy. I'm being blunt here ok: my English would have deterioate, my so called "personality" would have been a lethargic one, and I can't wear selipar jepun to class. That was crappy enough for me.
I spent almost 2 years in a private college. I've gained and I've lost. Now I'm applying to UiTM (read on...)

Based on many of my close acquantainces, friends, and relatives: well... Local uni, they restrict in most (every) way i.e. clothing (kena denda T_T); opinions (MUST NOT go against government - just because); the way you act; the way you express yourself individually (because there are extreme conservatives who'd judge you i.e. "mesti dia bohsia tak pakai tudung"); and might I add SELIPAR JEPUN is not allowed!
seriously though.
University should be a place where you can EXPRESS yourself. I think private colleges somewhat allows that. When you have room to express, you have room to grow mentally.. these are probably just trails towards QUALITY but I'm just saying u know?
Students - they're important and the crux of the university's quality. The way, how, what, where, why they are. A university should prepare a system to mould Quality.

Local Uni imprison their students by limiting it to one race. No?
Maybe thats why their mind, and language are limited too. You go to UTAR, Chinese majority. English? not really mah. Mandarin/Cantonese? We tereerr ma.. See! it's all the same case. This quote had me laughing my **** off btw....
"Anonymous said...
I was a student there. Quite a number do speak perfect english....and they make the 1%. Yup, the 99% left actually can only think about marrying someone and are racists."
2/16/2007 04:46:00 PM "

I do have to say, the people around you influence you, like it or not. If your perspectives are flowered only by a specific type of people, then yours are a questionable one. Private col & uni provide a platform for different kinds of weirdos. Which is seriously not bad.
Our English proficiency? I blame that dude who made our lessons be taught in Bahasa Melayu in the 1970s. UiTM is but another victim.
Hey, I love the Malay Language, they've proved to be a BEAUTIFUL language. I just wonder why - despite having us taught in BM - that our glory days of Malay Literature seem to have desipate? Where's the NEW generations of ASamadSaid, Usman Awang, Latiff Mohiddin? *looks left, looks right... errrr* Mereka pergi Overseas Tuan...
So.
Isn't it weird (stupendous) how I still want to apply to UiTM?
The course I want are limited here in Malaysia and I can't afford to go overseas (yet) and Lim Kok Wing... is definitely out of the question (another "WORLD-CLASS" propaganda) Bt you know what? It's just gonna another step I'm taking. A transit ticket that might suck, but hey, I might like the ride. Are you gonna judge my choice? I don't have a care for the fake statistics and statements frm UiTM. I just want to learn. It can't all be useless information can't they?
Quoting another fellow commenter,
"tepuk dada tanya ilmu.."


Regards & Assalamualaikum.

Anonymous said...

Let me express my opinion here.
I've been working for few well known companies & juz resigned last Nov to further my studies in US.
From my point of view, most of the companies dun really care from which uni u are graduated from. But the most important thing is how u present & sell urself to the employer. Eventhough u r from Harvard or Oxford, but if u r not performing well during the interview, then the job is still not yours. Dun blame the uni, but always judge urself & u'll see that the problem is with u urself.

- Proud 2b ex-UiTM -

Anonymous said...

statistics can be manipulated to serve one's ends. lets say uitm produces 100 graduates a year and 10 per cent are unemployed. now compare this to, say ums that produces 50 graduates of whom 10 per cent are unemployed.

uitm tops the table because it has a larger number graduating. which is not the same as employability. for all u know, the ratio of employed grads to graduating year could be better than the others on the list.

Anonymous said...

Hi there.I find this topic useful as I'm doing a research abt unemployed graduates in Malaysia for my english assignment.Hope to see more comments about it.

Anonymous said...

i think it is not fair 4 uitm becoz of it large amount of student compared to other u.. =.="

zubin said...

Hello, jangan lupa datang tengok Selipar Jepun theatre production at Stor Teater DBP on 20-22 July ya!
www.kakiseni.com
www.svarnabhumi.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

just a short comment on the selipar jepun..
is it important that you are not allowed to wear a selipar jepun? It is freedom of expression?
there must be a reason why, its an educational institution!who can study after seeing ur not-so-ehem feet? hello.. cover it up dude for the sake of others. such trivial matters.OK..i know i'm regressing from the topic.sorry..

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
i think it is not fair 4 uitm becoz of it large amount of student compared to other u.. =.="

6/03/2007 11:12:00 AM

u're totally correct. u're a type of person that talk logically according to facts!! most of them are talking craps.

"and might I add SELIPAR JEPUN is not allowed! "

you know what, tell us ,is it allowed to wear selipar jepun in private college? what a shame...

tata
hatethisblogauthor

Anonymous said...

Ahah..
I'm in private uni, n the answer is not allowed, but no restriction if u wanna wear or not.

..unless Pak Gad menggila, we need to wear.If not, a note of summon will be mine, which will burn rm50 coz of selipar jepun..

.. dat's private uni.. all about money

p/s: am i out of topic? hehe

Anonymous said...

Please learn a bit of statistic! a simple one will do.

'the number' alone cannot represent the overall picture

20 unemployed from 100 graduate is much better than 5 unemployed out of 10 graduate...and so on!!

UiTM Graduate is by far the largest (in number)...of course a large number are unemployed....similarly, a large number are employed.

Anonymous said...

it's shocking to see that the issue of uitm is still hot till today. I'm quite shocked to see that this entry still received comments despite the entry has been posted for months..!

From the way MOST people speak, I can conclude that most of us are still not ready to live as one Bangsa Malaysia. Most of us speak with emotion not with wisdom. We speak with hatred, not with love. We speak to defend our own race, not to create a sense of belonging.

It is sad to see that after 50 years of independence, prejudice still existed between us, Malaysians. What shall we do to stop this prejudice-minded people?

This blog is really great. For me, this blog had touches issues that many Malaysians feared to speak out publicly.

Lastly, just a reminder to all future commentators, COMMENT WISELY. COMMENT WITH YOUR WISDOM, NOT YOUR EMOTION. Post your comment that cross racial barrier, not one that try hardly to defense your own race. Malaysia's future depends on us, Malaysians; Bangsa Malaysia!

snowbell said...

your blog actually attracted me to read it.. it's a little bit hard to accept the fact that UiTM grads have a good English proficiency.. i mean not all but most of them and some commented on the "Kelantanese English" LOL that's funny... but hey you can't compare the UiTM grads with other Uni coz they are all BUMIPUTERA = like ermmss... 90% malays? well there is no mixing around with other races and all and it is difficult to keep on speaking english and have the open mind if you put yourself in their shoes...since all of them came from the same race. but then i would still agree on how bad is their English...and about becoming World class... that is what we use to laugh about since the students and the lecturers are NOT a world class type..LOL No offense people... :)

Anonymous said...

UiTM has many branches all over Malaysia and it is a known fact that it produced the highest amount of graduates, thus the statistic above can't be used to imply that more percentage of UiTM students are jobless than other university.

percentage of jobless for an integrated list of universities doesn't equate to highest percentage of jobless student for one particular university.

let say university A got 200 student. 40 of them jobless.
University B got 20 student, 10 of them jobless

to apply as the statistic quoted above,
jobless:
Uni A - 40 - 80%
Uni B - 10 - 20%

oh wow! bad! Uni A has 80% of jobless student! NOW THAT"S FAULTY!

that's where it is not reliable.
it does not concern with the respective percentage for respective university.

Uni A has 160 with job
while Uni B has only 10.
this is also not the benchmark to decide as it is also faulty because 160 with jobs can't be better than 10 if that 140 has at the same time 120 who's jobless while the 10 has none.

so this is where we need to look at the percentage for respective university.

Uni A.
200 students. 40 jobless.
5% jobless.

Uni B.
20 student. 10 jobless.
50% jobless!

now which is better.
you think.




that is if an argument for those who are relying on the statistic with lousy theory by saying the highest percentage of the mixed uni = worst. there I present the faultiness of that theory.

but then, the statistic is limited to graduates registered with the ministry's Job Clearing System that were still unemployed as at June 12. so we never know the real statistic of unemployed students, what about those who never registered themselve with the system?



ending this; quoting someone above;

scholl clerk (the brilliant one) said...

Please learn a bit of statistic! a simple one will do.

'the number' alone cannot represent the overall picture

20 unemployed from 100 graduate is much better than 5 unemployed out of 10 graduate...and so on!!

UiTM Graduate is by far the largest (in number)...of course a large number are unemployed....similarly, a large number are employed.

Anonymous said...

Agreed with adamas1201.

While the statistics in the above article shows (out of a particular batch) that UiTM has some 3,000-plus unemployed graduates, it did not equally speak up the fact that UiTM produces approx. 30,000 fresh graduates every year.

Compare to other major universities (UM, USM, UKM, UPM, UTM, UUM, UIAM), each of them produces about approx. 5,000 fresh graduates annually. Yet, according to the above statistics for almost all of these universities, each have a "backlog" of ~1,000 unemployed grads form that particular batch! Sorry to say, UUM is the one that actually comes worst with 1,532 unemployed grads out of just 5,000-plus!!!

From the numbers in the same attached statistics above, only UM and USM did better. But then again, percentage-wise, UM and USM have actually been cuting down their undergrad intake for the last few years to approx. 4,500 every year or less.

Therefore, percentage-wise, UiTM grads actually have a better success rate in employment. Of course this success rate doesn't make UiTM an icon university but let us be fair and look the whole picture.

UiTM-bashers, go learn statistics yourselves lah! You may want to apply for UiTM's Faculty of Quantitative Science! LMAO!!!

Anonymous said...

I feel sorry 4 d person that produced the statistics....u can't just calculate it like that...it should also be compared to the number of fresh graduates the university produces....doesn't it makes logical sense that the more students there are in the university, the higher the possibility on unemployed graduates? think about that...however, since i'm a unimas student, i do feel proud the percentage of unemployed graduates of unimas is one of the lowest...hahaha....wow!!! n all this time i felt bad....

Unknown said...

It's a pity to see those proud UiTM-bashers couldn't even understand and apply basic statistics!

Anonymous said...

i strongly disagree with you...
as my opinion, it is based on programme taken...
program macam musics, art, performing art and bussiness management,, memang hardly to get employed...
but i have many malay friends, tha graduate under faculty of applied sciences, medic, and engineering...all of them are employed.......
so, employed/unemployed is unrelated with IPTA/IPTS......

NG KAR WEI said...

3,278/+100000
3,278/+100000
3,278/+100000

DO YOU LEARN STATISTICS???
OR YOU JUST A STUPID & UNEDUCATED BLOGGER??
DO YOU NEED I TO TEACH YOU STATISTICS???
I THINK YOU SHOULD STOP BLOGGING AND CONTINUE YOUR STUDIES!
WHO'S YOUR LECTURER???

YOU JUST CANNOT SIMPLY RELATE THE IPT WITH NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED GRADUATE!!!!

SHAME ON YOUU.....

STOP RACISM ON YOUR BLOG!!!
STOP THINKING LIKE A CHILD!!

EVEN I AM CHINESE GIRL, I LOVE MY COUNTRY...I ALSO HAVE MALAY FRIENDS...AND I LOVE THEM TOO...
THEY ARE SO GOOD TO ME...

Anonymous said...

dEAR ALL COMMENTARS ON UITM ISSUES THAT PRODUCING THE MOST UNEMPLOYED GRADUATES.

EVEN THOUGH IT IS TRUE IF UITM IS STILL PRODUCING THE HIGHEST UMEPLOYED GRADUATES, DONT U THINK THAT WHAT IS THE MAIN REASON?

FIRST OF ALL, THE MAJORITY OF THE EMPLOYER IS NON-BUMI (MOSTLY CHINESE) THAT HATES THE MALAY GRADUATES SINCE MALAY WAS GIVEN ALOT OF OPPURTUNITY TO BE IMPROVED!!!

THEREFORE, THE CURRENT SITUATION OUTSIDE THERE WAS NOT FAIR AND SEEMS TO BE A SABOTAGE STRATEGY TO IMPEDE THE EXISTENCE OF MALAY GRADUATES COMING FROM UITM.


THE NON-BUMI EMPLOYER JUST PRETENDING WITH THE GOVERNMENT THAT IS MOSTLY POWERED BY MALAYS IN ORDER TO HAVE HARMONISE BUSINESS MOOD....BUT THEY PLAN TO SABOTAGE THE MALAY AGENDA BY NOT CHOOSING THEM TO WORK.

THANK GOD PETRONAS IS MY MALAY POWER...IF NOT THOSE GREEDY NON BUMI EMPLOYER WILL ALSO SABOTAGE THE MALAY

Anonymous said...

i dont think the statistic was done apple to apple..if we dig deeper on the numbers..can you calculate how many graduates produced by UiTM annually compared to the other local uni?

if we do ratio employed : unemployed according to total number graduates by each uni then we will know whether which one is producing valuable graduates..

somemore, it doesnt matter which uni is producing valuable graduates as long as MALAYSIAN are valuable in the eyes of the world..thats all that matter..

just my 2-cents :)

Anonymous said...

Nonsense!

cik aisha said...

uitm student

whatever you said,, uitm still dihatiku laa.. i don't care.. i'm just proud to be a uitm student. fullstop!

Penangite KC said...

i think there is something wrong with people who try to argue that UiTM has a higher graduate headcount and thus IS MORE PRONE to have unemployed graduates. That is an incorrect viewpoint from the perspective of statistical mathematics.

UiTM has a big sample pool and usually a big sample pool will dilute the numerator and thus lower the percentage. Let's say we have 1,000 unemployed in UiTM among a total graduate headcount of 100,000. The unemployment rate is 1%.

Let's now take another university and assume that it has a total graduate headcount of 10,000. If 1,000 among the graduates are unemployed, the unemployment rate will be 10%.

What do you learn from the above? It means UiTM has the advantage of a larger sample to dilute the index but yet it has a high % of unemployment. If you want to compare apples with apples, UiTM is SERIOUSLY problematic because universities with a lower graduate headcount CANNOT AFFORD to have too many unemployed graduates, but yet they fare better than UiTM.

Anonymous said...

hehehehehehehe bia jela semua tu.. yg penting diri sendiri.. uni lain, 1-2-3 branch dlm malaysia.. uitm ade bercawang-cawang.. klau uni lain tu still ade yg unemployed, uitm tentula yg tertinggi sbb bk sgt graduan yg graduate + yg unemployed tu adalah dalam kategori malas belajar... hehe :)