Graduate unemployment can be a bad thing. But Bumiputera unemployment can be explosive. The rise in Bumiputera graduate unemployment should worry Malaysians.
Anil Netto’s blog has the following statistics, gleaned from a parliamentary response provided to PKR Member of Parliament, William Leong in 2009:
In 2004, there were 4,594 unemployed graduates of whom 163 were Chinese, 207 were Indians and 4,060 were Malays;
In 2005, there were 2,413 unemployed graduates of whom 31 were Chinese, 70 were Indians and 2,186 were Malays;
In 2006, there were 56,750 unemployed graduates of whom 1,110 were Chinese, 1,346 were Indians and 50,594 were Malays.
In 2007, there were 56,322 unemployed graduates of whom 1,348 were Chinese, 1,401 were Indians and 49,075 were Malays.
In 2008 (as of June) there were 47,910 unemployed graduates of whom 1,403 Chinese, 4,694 Indians and 41,813 were Malays.
This more or less tallied with the 47,733 active graduate registrants on the Malaysian Labour Exchange in June 2008.
By March 2009, Najib was talking about 60,000 unemployed graduates. This was more or less in line with the 57,701 graduate registrants on the Exchange in March 2009.
By October 2009, we were looking at 81,046 active graduate registrants on the Labour Exchange – and another 70,747 active registrants who are diploma holders.
In 2010, it was reported that 30,000 graduates could not find employment six months after graduation.
Malaysia’s world class education system appears to have produced unemployable graduates with 90% of them bumiputeras.
Malaysia’s public sector historically performed the function of absopring Bumiputera graduates but with a bloating public sector but with critical shortages in skilled areas (doctors, nurses, science and mathematics teachers) and Malaysia’s fiscal position reaching worrying stage, this option is now limited.
The culprit appears to be Malaysia’s public universities. In 2006, 70% of graduates from public universities were unemployed with Universiti Teknologi MARA — the universiti exclusively for Bumiputeras — contributing the highest.
William Leong also attributes Bumiputera graduate unemployment to mismatch – where public universities are not being in tune with industry needs and/or producing graduates that are not in demand.
Retraining them have produced dismal results but at a tremendous cost. Dr. Lim Teck Ghee of CPI cites that approximately RM500 million a year is spent on retraining these graduates.
It is the fervent hope that these unemployed Bumiputera graduates correctly identify Barisan Nasional’s policies and themselves for their predicament and not innocent bystanders such as the non – Malays.
[Editors note: UMNO and and its new partner PERKASA, have perfected the art of blaming non-Malays, especially the Malaysian Chinese community and sometimes, Western powers for the ills of the Malay community.]
Thousands more Bumiputeras are expected to graduatein the short and medium term. The Malaysian economy is expected to perform at a stable but mediocre 4.6% to 5% over 2011-2020. It is unclear if there will be sufficient number of jobs created for them or if these graduates will be able to compete for the jobs that are available in the private sector.
It is left to be seen how this rising tide of unemployable Bumiputera graduates will affect Barisan Nasional and Malaysia’s future.
[Editor's note: This is not to suggest that Bumiputera graduates are not competent but merely to highlight that a large majority of them - 90% - have difficulty finding employment.]
[Correction (16-02-2012) - the above should read that 90% of those who have voluntarily registered as unemployed in a government database are Bumiputeras]
20 responses so far ↓
1 Bumiputera graduate unemployment and Malaysia's world class … // Feb 6, 2011 at 11:44 pm
[...] here: Bumiputera graduate unemployment and Malaysia's world class … Tags: a-bad-thing-, a-graduate-unemployment, a-recipe-for, bad-thing-, bumiputera, education, [...]
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2 Tweets that mention Bumiputera graduate unemployment and Malaysia’s world class education system – a recipe for disaster -- Topsy.com // Feb 7, 2011 at 3:26 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vincent Fernando, New Mandala. New Mandala said: Bumiputera graduate unemployment and Malaysia’s world class education system – a recipe for disaster: Graduate u… http://bit.ly/eZY9g2 [...]
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3 neptunian // Feb 7, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Both public and private universities and colleges have the same problems of quality, but the real problem is the altitude of the Bumiputra graduates with regards to employment. The same altitude reside in the minds of non malay graduates. – a desire for blue ribbon jobs.
The poor salary scale in Malaysia does not help. Salaries basically have stagnated since the 1990s. Family support structure in Malaysia, as in many asian countries also contribute to this. Malays and non malays unemployed grads alike, live off their parents (mostly)
Anecdotes;
Unemployment
Nephew of a friend (Chinese) graduated from Oz and returned to Malaysia (Klang Valley) and was unemployed for more than 6 months. Got a job for him as an engineer in a mutual friend’s factory in Melaka. Sorry do not want the job. Reason – too far from home. Kid expect to drive from home to another state to work every day! It is just an exceuse, he has only applied to work at MNCs and GLCs and is just not interested in smaller outfit. Meanwhile, living off parents.
Quality
My own nephew, graduated with engineering degree from Monash – Kuala Lumpur branch campus – a year+ ago. Results are only average, but was employed by Monash as a tutor. Now he is a working happily as lecturer in Monash (promoted)! Now tell me – what is he teaching the new students? What is he bringing to the table? A half ass student, pass, then start teaching new students immediately. AND that is Monash!
There is simply no control over quality of tertiary education in Malaysia. It goes for public and private universities. At least in public universities, there is a minimum qualification needed to be a lecturer!
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4 hrk // Feb 7, 2011 at 10:09 pm
Just to clarify. You wrote: “This is not to suggest that Bumiputera graduates are not competent but merely to highlight that a large majority of them – 90% – have difficulty finding employment”. I guess here is a misunderstanding. Not 90% of graduates are unemployed, but rather 90% of the unemployed graduates are Bumiputra, which is a bit different.
It would be nice to have a break down of unemployed graduates by subject of study. Perhaps those subjects that are particularly rewarding and interesting for Bumi. students are not those where jobs are easily found. I remember that Dr. M. pointed out that the Bumi-students tend to study the wrong subjects namely Malay- and Islamic studies. In fact, in these subjects the need of industries tends to be limited.
One reason why Indian and Chinese are less unemployed in absolute numbers could very well be that due to quota regulations the number of students finishing with a degree is substantially lower.
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5 CLee // Feb 8, 2011 at 2:23 am
It will be interesting to know the breakdown of degree majors of Bumi graduates ie Islamic studies vs accountancy, engineering etc.
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6 CLee // Feb 8, 2011 at 2:37 am
As neptunian noted, there is now such a proliferation of private education providers (these are businesses), catering to just about anyone or anyone’s offspring to have a degree. Let’s take our private medical colleges for example- a surgeon friend recently remarked that these new setups are so desperate for clinical coaches that they have been cold calling her and just about anyone to locum as teachers (despite their heavy other commitments). so if you want a medical degree but don’t make the cut into a public or one of the better private universities, there are many others that will take your ringgit. The same surgeon wondered how these future doctors could make the cut?
- I think the problem lies with money and the ease in accreditation.
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7 Greg Lopez // Feb 8, 2011 at 10:54 am
@hrk,
“Not 90% of graduates are unemployed, but rather 90% of the unemployed graduates are Bumiputra, which is a bit different.”
Thank you for making this clear.
Your suggestion (as also made by CLee) about researching the courses which contributes to unemployment is also important.
It is most likely that these graduates are from the liberal arts fields.
It would be good if data on these types of issues were publicly available for researchers to analyse.
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8 neptunian // Feb 8, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Too much is made of specific courses that students take. Its OK to be on a general degree (liberal arts or otherwise). One would still be able to get a job. One needs specific degree for engineering, accountancy, medical, pharmaceutical, but a whole world of commercial jobs do not need specialised education.
Business, marketing, investment analysis, even banking…. Basic College education is suppose to teach one how to think, analyse and search for information. Armed with that, one can do almost any no specialised jobs. However, with half ass tutors and students, then it would be difficult, as the graduate is simply not equiped.
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9 HRK // Feb 9, 2011 at 9:39 am
The anecdotes and some comments point into one important direction, which, however, should be though about a bit more. There is always and everywhere a complain that teachers or prof. for that matter are not sufficiently qualified. This is, to some degree, true everywhere. There is a law of nature, quite similar to the laws of gravity or thermodynamics that you have about one third of person doing an excellent job (far more then required), one third that do a proper job and one third that shouldn’t be there. You can’t change it! The important issue is thus not to try to get three thirds doing an excellent job, as this is simply impossible! Important is, which group is dominant, and how can it be achieved that at least those doing a proper job define the niveau.
Another, quite similar law of nature is that if politicians, bureaucrats or business (impact factors!) define what should go on at universities, then, surely the lowest third will become dominant. There are many highly qualified persons in southeast Asian universities. The important issue is, what are the structures that limit their impact, and how can these be changed. As a matter of fact, this issue is not limited to Malaysia or Thailand!
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10 jeez // Feb 9, 2011 at 9:48 pm
I would say that bumiputra undergraduates are not dumb but they are too relax. Given that i am a bumiputra myself and have been mixing up with bumi’s friend all along. I could see that most of them feel that they are always in comfort zone.
Y are they unemployed? try n have a look at their result transcript. I would say most of them even who are studying in overseas only manage to pass “cukup makan” the exams which enables them to get a degree. I believe even the company that i am working right now would only employ those who get cgpa 3.3o and above. Are they dumb? I believe not… but you could see they r just relaxing and wasting their time even when the exams are near.
When it comes to assignments, what do they do? They will search for a friend to copy the assignment or take their friend’s material. Conclusion: no effort at all.
I have asked one of my friend at uni,”Oi kau nak keje ape kalau result takat pass?”. and what he replied.”kerajaan je kowt”. I would say this is generally what are in the minds of these bumi’s.
Luckily, I’m not that kind of bumi.
cheers
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11 Greg Lopez // Feb 10, 2011 at 11:44 am
@ jeez
Thank you for that honest comment. But I think this also prevails among most Malaysians as noted by @ neptunian #3 about his nephew.
We don’t seem to realise that India, China and Vietnam are producing better quality graduates in proportions higher than we are. And we demand the government to protect us from competition.
@ neptunian #8 is also correct that the end objective of education is the ability to think (and hopefully good character). Malaysia’s education system has definitely failed in this.
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12 Glovak // Sep 1, 2011 at 12:38 am
I passed with mediocre result with a degree in engineering. Studied at a university in the USA. Came back to Malaysia exactly 2 years ago and I am still in a huge debt with my study loan, no car, and today I am unemployed after working with 3 different companies.
You may wonder why I quit the jobs. The first job was with a call centre serving Singaporean customers where I was being screamed at and shouted all the F* and racist words you can imagine. They paid me 2600rm basic which was good but I dont think being verbally abused at least twice a day like that is a decent job. No! I felt like I lost my soul little by little everyday that coming to work is like a scary nightmare and the happiest time was only when the working hours finished. Am I a choosy person? Im not sure…I felt totally depressed with everything about the call centre environment. Answering calls for non stop for 4 hours and then 1 hour break and then continue again answering non stop for 4 hours and if there is a need which was always the case I had to extend for another 2 hours because of not enough staffs. They even timed your toilet break! So I was the 6th person in my batch to leave the call centre after 4 months. Btw, it was a total shocked for me as well. Imagine that I just came back from the USA where the environment was full of polite and nice people with the please and thanks in every sentences. For 4 years I was used to that environment and suddenly came back to Malaysia and people were like dogs eating dogs just to take care their own interest. The customers that I served even though not all but most were the worst kind Ive had in my life! They would threaten me making sure I would lose my job and even threaten committing suicide!
So moved on to my second job. It was just my temporary job before I could find a better one. I lasted only 3 months! It was a sales job for a spa in PJ. Reasons that I quit? The sales tactic was just too aggressive up to the point that the manager asked me and the rest to humiliate the customers. For the manager, if the customer had a credit card, there would be no reason for me not to sell the spa packages. So after have been cheating countless students and executives and the innocent ones I resigned at the end of the 3rd month after made a sale of more than 30 000rm. Earning some commission give me some pocket money to stratagize for my third job. The fact that the manager made me worked more than 11 hours per day for 6 days per week also made me exhausted.
Here is the thing, once you have stucked with some kind of customer service job in your resume, thats the only thing that your prospective employers or HR person would look at. Merely a degree is not enough in Malaysia. All the coursework with various companies that Ive done in the USA are all little side things where as when I showed up for an interview in the USA, they grilled me on the courseworks. When I showed up for an interview in the USA, the HR person would show me their companies first and try to attract me to work with them. The opposite things happened here in KL. The interviewers raised their voice, cut me off in the middle of my sentences and treated me as if Im so desperate to join their company thus offering me the lowest salary. So when I attended an interview the other day, I asked for 2500 and stated thats the minimum and not negotiable. Yet, they still offer me the job and tried to negotiate with me. Since the way they treated me I already had an impression that this is not the kind of company that I want to work with. If I were to join them and knowing how I would be treated in future, I would make sure that Im compensate fairly. And yes its another call centre job. Here experience matters most not your degree or anything you have done in the university.
My third job also didnt go well. Worked with this newly incorporate airlines for 8 months. Salary, 1500rm. Yeah, I was so distressed with my first 2 jobs and after being promised over time, allowances, and every month incentives, I imagined I would be able to make more than 2k. I was wrong, the HR person who interviewed me apparently didnt know a whole lot about the real nature of my job. There was no overtime, no incentive, no allowances. After talking with my new found colleagues, I felt like cheated and doomed. I brought home 10K RM, the amount of money I saved while working part time in the US (yes damn it, they pay good hourly wage over there, with minimum wage enshrined in their labor law) and that 10K i bought plane ticket from Sarawak and have my house rent deposit paid, interview expanses (in the USA they paid me my car’s gas and meal vouches!) and now that 10K after 2 years has vanished and I have no saving!
In early May this year I quit the job with the airline. I went to their interview for something else but, they gave me something else with PROMISE that they would give me what I want eventually (they say after 3 months). Being Malaysian myself, trust me, there is no such thing as “adab susila orang timur-sopan santun”. Got customer shouting and banging the counter with his fist over the counter, screaming, called me liar, I accepted that my job required me to open umbrellas for the passengers (even though it was not mentioned in the job description) and soaked under the rain, pushing the trolleys where some rude passangers would just throw the umbrellas at me. And all of this for what?? for that 1300rm after minusing epf and socso. I felt terribly cheated. Luckily I didnt sign any bond with them. People come and go in this company. My juniors all had them signing their bonds. Leaving means 5k penalty for them.
Early May, I decided to accept a friend invitation to spend 3 months in the europe. People say “the grass is greener in the other side of the fence” or “Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri”. They are all damn true!. Right now my only aim is to have myself survive in KL. Ive never asked money from my parents since 8 years ago. Im proud of that. But right now Im thinking of moving back to Sarawak to my parents house. I might be unemployed for few months I dont know. Got that job offer, the call centre i told you? Still thinking about it.
Here in Malaysia, the rule is CGPA below 3.00 dont dare to dream a decent job. My university advisor and my teachers used to tell me, with engineering degree (and all other sciences degree) I basically can venture to any job. It was 4 f**king intense engineering study! and for what is it now? no one is looking at my degree. 70% of jobs in malaysia is customer service based. accept it. One day I’m going to migrate out of this country.
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13 Greg Lopez // Sep 2, 2011 at 9:21 am
Hi Glovak,
I feel for you.
However, I’m surprised. Malaysia is suffering from skills shortage, including engineers. I would have assumed you would be able to find a job as an engineer without much difficulty.
Have you tried registering with the government’s Electronic Labour Exchange.
In your opinion, why do you think, you can’t get a job as an engineer?
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14 rusdi3713 // Sep 2, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Hi glovak…what a story…I started work in 1988 after graduated in 1987. For one year i stayed in kampong selling burgers and helping family rubber tapping. Only when my wife came back after finishing her master then i came down to KL. Time was tough then and JPA released me. With a 3.1 CGPA architecture degree when all my friends with 3.4 and above were taken by university to be lecturers. Worst still the american architecture graduates were not recognized by the governing bodies and all private sectors whereby the first question they would asked during the interview was where did you graduate from then when you told them from the US then came the second question whether you have any job experience. I was arrogant enough not to accept part time offer during summer break wanting to rest and the thought of going back only to work with JKR…that is where graduates worked and meant for what, to serve in the public sector when you were given the JPA scholaship. I started work in a small firm with a salary of rm400/month and my wife had a part-time lecturer in UPM with like rm750/month. In 1989 we had our first kid, no TV everyday watch and play with cuty small daughter and with no car only one 1974 WA421 kapcai..then lucky she got offered in UiTm just right after ‘pantang’. I stayed with the firm ever since, saw the firm grew from 7 odd staff to 40 at one time and now we are at 15 or so doing what we are and i m doing best..architecture…and proud to see your ‘hasil tangan ‘ out physically all around klang valley and the nation. I worked hard and even harder for my professional registration because of the authority did not recognize the degree going through few additional processes and tests. Now as a junior partner, I could afford a big car what not from that rm400 factory worker salary but with a 5 year degree ‘selalu tak tidur malam siapkan’ assignments and class project but what is that for. People expected me to have a semiD at-least but a double-storey terrace is good enough for me. So-nya as for me is simple…if you want to chase life then you would not have a life and by the time you had your life then you have little life left. Think about it, do not blame others but ourselves..off-course right attitude employer is very much important..good luck and all the best to you
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15 Glovak // Sep 2, 2011 at 2:52 pm
I havent registered in Electronic Board Exchange. Thank you for the info.
I studied industrial engineering*. It was not something that I really want to do. Its not my passion yet I survived 4 years of intense engineering study. Alot of people either drop out or switched their studies. Isnt that prove something of myself? I accepted the offer as it was my chance to go overseas.
I did try looking for a job that has something to do with my engineering degree (eg. production planner/assistant) but the basic salary offered was between RM1500-RM1800. I couldnt see how I could survive with that salary being away from my family especially that I eventually plan to get a car. And most of the jobs required me to have a car. Even a good second hand car would cost me around RM10k.
Anyway, I dont like engineering that much and I am trying to find something else where i can still apply my engineering knowledge. But, in malaysia, in my opinion, people dont understand the intensity of engineering study (especially in universities outside Malaysia) that they think I wont be able to grasp other jobs denying me a chance to be interviewed. Almost all decent job ads (including engineering) required to have at least CGPA of 3.2 and above. I remember sending a job application to a job agency for trainee post. There are looking for possibly 50 people to be initiated in various governance and admin positions and its opened to all major of studies. 5 mins later I got a reply, “Your CGPA isn’t qualify you for this opening”. I noticed there are thousands of applications. What about those people who majored in business, psychology, or other arts related subjects (no offense) with CGPA of more than 3.2, do they accept them? Yes they do! A friend of mine who studied marketing in local university, who barely speak english, got accepted! Dont they differentiate between those who studied engineering and arts or social sciences related studies?? Heck no. I studied managerial and financial accounting to name a few of business classes that I took as a minor when I was in the university and those are the classes that I easily scored A as compared to engineering classes. Them, who ever they are, who are responsible in selecting people, I dont think they know what American or other countries education system is like. The fact is, CGPA 3.00 and below, you are cut off from good jobs!
I have attended a lot of interviews but they dont questions me on the stuffs that I studied in university. I dare to say that I ace almost all of my interview as of why I got job offer one after another easily. The thing is, the interviews that Im called to are all sales job and call centre from various banks and companies. Having had my past experience with a call centre, I dont think i would want to go back there. Yet, its only call centre offers that I got up to these days.
Another thing that I observed, a lot of job offering in Malaysia, race and religion always come into play. Application forms online or not, would make race and religion sections as compulsory (Im not a muslim nor malay). But what do you know, I need to adapt in this part of the world where discrimination is embedded in the culture and accepted norm. There is a big multinational company called WD, where the human resource deparment is dominated by the Malays, so you can guess who get more calls for the interviews. Another friend of mine, got a diploma in forestry earned from a local university used to worked as an HR executive with them. That is just one example. Not trying to be tooo pessimistic ( even though I am already). The government is even worst. Everyone knows that one needs an insider to get in.
*For the record, its the top 50 public university in the USA.
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16 Killer // Sep 2, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Oh no…not another unacademic, poorly written and BN/UMNO bashing article from Greg !
First of all, the writer has to do some real research and then do some analysis before coming out with an opinion piece. Certainly we expect a higher quality from an academic with an Australian University. Certainly we don’t expect the kinds of articles that we see day in and day out in pro-Opposition media such as M kini, MInsider, MChronicles, etc from an academically credible website such as the New Mandala.
The objective of this article is not so much in providing an academic dissection of the issue but merely provide more ammunition to blame the BN/UMNO. This “article” is extremely long on unsubstantiated accusations and very short on data and analysis.
Let’s see if Greg can answer these basic questions.
1. How do you know these graduates are from Malaysian universities ? Do you have the breakdown before making simplistic and wrong conclusion that the Malaysian universities are to be blamed. It is well known that many of the unemployed grads are overseas educated.
2. Do you know the breakdown of the graduates’ qualifications ? How many of them from humanities and other less marketable courses ? One of the big problems of unemployed graduates are less marketable courses such as arts, religious studies, etc. PAS govt of Kelantan routinely sends thousands of students to overseas for religious studies without worrying about employment of these students.
3. Have you considered the employment of bumi grads in Chinese businesses ? It is a known fact that these businesses unfairly discriminate against non Chinese (bumis, Indians, natives, etc). If you do not want the unemployed grads to blame these businesses, you need to examine the data and not make statements without basis.
Yet without these basis data, you have made vast logical jumps and concluded that the local universities and the BN/UMNO are to be blamed.
Your objective is not too difficult to see. ” It is the fervent hope that these unemployed Bumiputera graduates correctly identify Barisan Nasional’s policies and themselves for their predicaments..”. So what you are trying to do here is to channel the anger among the unemployed bumi grads to vote banks for Pakatan. This shows a remarkable alignment to the tactics currently employed by Pakatan Rakyat. As the next GE is fast approaching, PR is desperate for bumi votes and looking at bumi unemployed grads for salvation.
All these only strengthens my suspicions that you are no mere PR sympathiser but actively churn out “scholarly” articles in support of PR.
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17 Greg Lopez // Sep 3, 2011 at 5:49 am
Some clarification and reiteration:
1. This is a blog posting (capturing anecdotes, interesting statistics, funny statement, etc), not an op-ed or essay. An op-ed would be something like this, and an essay would be something like this.
2. Overall graduate unemployment is higher among non – bumiputeras than among bumiputeras. This was conveyed to me by Dr. Lee Hwok Aun. He explains this finding further in his paper, “Affirmative action in Malaysia: Education and employment outcomes since the 1990s”. His PhD thesis exploring affirmative action in Malaysia and South Africa provides the context for this shocking statistic. Really, this was news to me. It may partially explain the anger among young non-Malays towards BN. Hence one hypothesis for the higher number of Bumiputera’s registered on the Malaysian Electronic Labour Exchange than non – Bumi’s, maybe due to the believe by Bumiputera graduates that the government has an obligation to resolve their unemployment which does not exist among non – Bumiputeras.
3. Local universities unemployment rate – yes I wish the details were readily available (how useful if EPU and DOS makes all data available). This is one picked up from Berita Harian. But the point remains that Bumiputera graduate unemployment is a serious problem. The Malays are in general afraid of competition having been molly-coddled for the past 40 years. No doubt there are confident young Malays who excel. But they are not adequately represented. Who in UMNO has supported liberalisation or meritocracy. Analyse discourse at UMNO AGMs or Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian. That is why PERKASA gains traction. That is also why the UMNO led government has an undue obligation to address Bumiputera unemployment – especially graduates but does not have the same commitment to non – Bumiputeras (read any of the Malaysia plans and even the New Economic Model part 2 and ETP). As I have noted in my essay, Malaysia – a simple institutional analysis, we need tough reforms. These include right -sizing the public sector (its too large with low productivity and shortage in critical areas and a drag on fiscal resources, reform the GLCs through divestation – GLCs have also been a drag through crowding out of the private sector and incurring heavy losses contributing to fiscal deficits; regulate migrant workers better, etc). Through this creative destruction, new growth opportunities will arise to employ competent Malaysians. Can and will UMNO do this?
4. UMNO makes scapegoats of Malaysian Chinese when things go bad for UMNO and the Malays. The rise in religious and racial tensions correlates with problems in UMNO. Unfortunately, some Malays continue to believe this propaganda. After 40 years of affirmative action, that Malays have failed to achieve targets (that is if they perceive that they have failed) should be seen as a policy failure, and hence the government that implemented that policy should be responsible. The Malays should realise that they have failed not because of the Chinese but because they have placed their faith in poor government policies. If policies from any government fails the people, either the government changes its policies or the people should replace the government.
Please note that the quality of graduates from Malaysia from among all race are on the decline. Read any of the World Bank Reports on Malaysia or the New Economic Model for these findings (its called skilled shortages).
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18 michael // Sep 4, 2011 at 6:01 pm
@ jeez: you tell it like it is! I would replace your “relaxed” with ‘lazy & unmotivated’. From my experience, and from what friends who employ in Malaysia say, there is not much difference, activity-wise, between an employed and an unemployed Bumi. They seem to lack ambition, and expect to do as little as they can get away with. And as for scamming! Of course there are notable exceptions, but generally speaking the other races seem to be better contributors.
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19 Killer // Sep 5, 2011 at 11:48 am
Greg
1. You mean this is a sort “gossip” of portal where unproven allegations and salacious and juicy if somewhat baseless accusations are published ? I am sorry, please forgive me. I was under the impression that this is a respected academic portal where issues are carefully researched and presented and vigorously debated.
2. I note that you had neatly sidestepped my question. My question was NOT why there is a high unemployment among bumi grads. That’s something I can accept. My question was how come you can conclude the problem was the local universities when you didn’t have any data to work on.
3. One thing I would agree is that the NEP also brought on negative side effects and one of those is to produce competitiveness among the bumi community. That’s a common feature of affirmative actions globally, along with rent seekers and abuse. This is one area where I would like to see changes to the NEP, though I still maintain the over arching objectives of the NEP are noble and by and large it has brought tremendous changes to the bumi (and not just Malay) community. However, the problem is not just the govt or the bumi community but also the private sector where the bumis have not been given the adequate opportunity.
Obviously you don’t read what’s going on during UMNO meetings or UM. Your knowledge is probably taken from the extracts by MKini and such propaganda sites where only negative and sensational news about the bumis or BN are reported.
Also you are wrong on the rise of Perkasa. This right wing organisation is getting stronger because they feel UMNO is weak in defending the Malay special positions and rights.
4. No you are completely wrong on saying UMNO blames the Chinese for unemployment of bumi grads. Please give me one single evidence to support this. While Perkasa or some minor leaders might say so, this never been the official or unofficial stance / view of BN or UMNO. This is an outright lie. That’s why I am highly skeptical on your credibility as an independent academic. This is an example where you do appear to be a spinner for Pakatan rather than a neutral, academic observer of Malaysian politics and economic scene.
The results of the NEP has been widely discussed and no one in their right mind would blame the government for it. I don’t think it has been successful but neither it has been a failure. I support the finetuning of the NEP. That’s why Najib is coming out with a new model and he has on numerous occasion has spoken about the need to finetune this policy and acknowledged the shortcomings of the NEP. That all these not even been mentioned in your article is hardly surprising as it would not jive with “Malaysia’s doomed – UMNO’s racist- Pakatan’s the saviour ” theme that you are trying so hard to peddle.
BTW, I agree the quality of all grads have fallen but that also includes foreign educated. In fact yourself makes an excellent example on how low the standards have fallen.
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20 Greg Lopez // Feb 15, 2012 at 3:47 pm
I’m compiling evidence – which is widely available but not systematically organised especially for those who choose to be blind to the compelling evidence – on the links between UMNO’s policies and the decline of the quality of education (among many other things) in Malaysia.
For a start, this case study by the World Bank, comparing University Malaya (UM) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) provides a natural experiment on how different policies lead to – obviously – different outcomes. Singapore NUS focused on global competitiveness, Malaysia’s UM focused on placating the majority race. The outcomes are self-explanatory.
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