Malaysia’s
Under-qualified graduates
Numerous PhD holders can’t even write an original paragraph intelligibly or speak proper English, end up teaching our graduates.
Dr Mana. malaysiakini
Sep 8, 2006

When our graduates are unable to secure jobs in many of the private sector companies, one begins to wonder as to why this should happen.

Aren’t there enough jobs for our graduates or is it because they are not qualified enough to be employed?

Many of our IT graduates, for instance, are unemployed or doing jobs that do not commensurate their qualifications.

If they cannot make it within the country they would, theoretically, find it much tougher to survive in the global market.

Some employers lament that our graduates are not resourceful, creative and functional enough to survive in a challenging working environment.

In a way, these employers are right.

The mode of strait-jacketing our students at the school and university levels only reminds us of conformism to the traditional school teaching where students are trained just to listen and accept what their instructors pass on to them - involving very little interactive or persuasive skills.

This rhetorical mode of teaching has, to a certain extent, failed to produce graduates with an inquisitive mind.

Despite the many university hours spent on remedial work for those who lack these attributes, many have failed to acquire these decisive skills.

Added to this set of symptoms is their inability to brave themselves to express their ideas and opinions of their own.

Cut and paste, plagiarism and group thinking are the distinctive features seen in the work of our graduates.

Some are so bad in English that they cannot even string a simple sentence together correctly. They do not even have the proper skills to paraphrase academic work of others.

The best they resort to is copying or plagiarising what others have done. This is produced in class assignments as well as in theses up to the highest level.

There are numerous PhD holders in the local universities who cannot even write a paragraph of original stuff intelligibly and speak English legibly and yet they are teaching our graduates using this medium of instruction.

They seldom go beyond the stuff they have copiously written in their dissertations to improve themselves.

One wonders how, in the first place, they managed to get through their studies.

To add salt to injury, void of quality papers and publications, these academics are given the title of ‘professor’ merely to meet the number.

All this nonsense is a telling sign that the quality of our education is at stake.

Many of our students are just exceptionally good at rote learning but not qualitative learning. They are apt to remembering notes and regurgitating them during exams.

They are good at rehearsing facts but lack the skills to apply knowledge and think from out of the ordinary view points on any subject.

This is, unfortunately, the setback in our education system and it is hard for students to avoid it.

These students, on the other hand, are seldom rewarded for their ability to think creatively or for their unconventional standpoints.

There is a void of meaningful engagement analysis, independence of thought and support for students to think individually.

The education system should reward those who are truly au fait, ingenious and inspired and not those who wholly subscribe to the convention of copying, plagiarising and memorising notes from books and then churning them out in paper assignments and exams just to earn a degree.

Those teaching these graduates should have ample and indubitable experience and qualifications that are at par with those in the developed world and some developing countries.

Employ them based on true capability before our education system becomes a laughing stock, even among the many other progressive developing countries in our region.
Malaysiakini letter