Employability now included as a KPI in public varsities - The Star

PUTRAJAYA: Graduate employability has been included as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for all vice-chancellors of public universities.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the move was part of the long-term goal to raise the quality and marketability of local graduates.

“Others include introducing entrepreneurship curriculum, implementing soft skills programmes and student internship programmes in public and private corporations before the students graduate.

“Continuous dialogue between the universities and industry is being held to raise the quality of the graduates, an approach which is expected to reduce the mismatch between supply and demand for skilled manpower,” he said when launching the 1Malaysia Training Scheme (SL1M) here yesterday.

Also present was Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Najib said the Government was also implementing special programmes as a short-term measure to raise graduate employability and that included the training programmes carried out by the Higher Education Ministry, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Khazanah and the Skills Development Fund Corpora­tion involving 12,000 graduates.

He said this meant that out of the 20,000 unemployed graduates, 8,000 did not have the opportunity to undergo additional training to improve their marketability.

“Some of them come from the rural and interior areas as well as from low-income families.

“This background influences their character and self-confidence and affects their ability to secure employment

“Thus, by carrying out a last mile intervention in the form of finishing schools, I believe they will become more confident, and they are the target group of the SL1M,” he said, adding that the initiative was also for those who failed to be employed six months after graduating.

Najib said the approach proved effective when Bank Negara, through the short training programme for 500 graduates, had enabled all of them to find suitable jobs.

In this context, he said the SL1M programme should be expanded and made part of the corporate social responsibility of government-linked corporations (GLCs) and major companies.