KUALA LUMPUR: Graduate unemployability was found to be the highest in six university disciplines, revealed Higher Education Minister, Datuk Seri ldris Jusoh.
He told the Dewan Negara that graduates from business administration, applied science, human resource management, accounting, arts and social science disciplines found it tough to secure jobs, even six months after graduating.
A total of 54,103 graduates were unemployed six months after they completed their studies last year, Idris said.
The number was based on the Graduands Detection Survey System (SKPG) which recorded 238,187 finishing their studies last year.
He was replying to a question from Senator Datuk Ng Chiang Chin who asked for the statistics of unemployed graduates in 2016 six months after completing their studies and the courses involved.
"A total of 54,103 (22.7 per cent) university graduates out of 236,137 are unemployed six months after graduating.
"The total amount gathered was from public and private universities.
"Based on the Graduates Detection Survey System, the marketability of graduates had also increased by 2.9 per cent."
Idris said that between 2015 and 2016, graduates marketability had seen an increase of 1.2 per cent.
He said among the initiatives taken by the ministry to ensure that graduates remained competitive when entering thejob market was to use the
cumulative grade point average (iCGPA) system in Universities and introduce more work-based learning between the government, universities, community and industries.
"Programmes as such were introduced according to the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education). The programmes would be able to produce a more holistic graduates when they enter the work force.