Higher Education in Malaysia 103
time, institutional policymakers and researchers would do well to evaluate
research quality and the extent to which research outputs are directed to
economic activities.
Employability of University Graduates
The quality of higher education institutions may also be judged by the
employability of their graduates. In 2012, from a total of 202,328 graduands
from both public and private higher educational institutions, 25.6 per cent
(51,796) were unemployed. Data from a tracer study conducted by MOHE
and thereafter MOE since 2013 show that private HEI graduates have a
higher employability rate than graduates from public HEIs. In the same year,
56.7 per cent from private HEIs were employed compared with 47.4 per
cent for graduates from the latter. However, the unemployed proportion
is higher at 28.8 per cent for private HEIs compared with 24.7 per cent for
public HEIs probably due to a larger number of their graduands (20.8 per
cent) opting for further studies compared with only 8.7 per cent for private
HEIs (MOHE 2012).
A June 2014 report of a survey of Malaysian employers from 200
companies employing 245,000 workers identified skills mismatches
between recent graduates and employers’ demands (World Bank 2014).
Malaysian university graduates lacked soft skills with communication skills
as the major deficit, followed by creative/critical thinking, analytical and
problem-solving competencies. To boost graduates’ employability chances,
the government has put in place several training programmes managed by
the Graduate Employment Management Scheme which has placed 12,000
graduates in the workforce since 2009. The cumulative costs incurred per
trainee on top of highly subsidized undergraduate costs were not available.
A matter of grave concern in efforts to develop an innovative and
knowledge economy is the increasing number of professional tertiary-
educated Malaysians, aged above 25 years emigrating from the country.
It represents high wastage in terms of investment made in their education
and training, benefiting the receiving industrialized, higher income
economies. A recent study (Lim, Krishnan and Yap 2014) estimated that
the total diaspora in 2013 comprises 843,591 individuals, 35 per cent higher
than in 2000. Singapore alone attracted 49.2 per cent of the total diaspora,
with Australia at 13 per cent, followed by Brunei, United Kingdom and
the United States.