KUCHING: Instead of just pursuing education and training in order to become employees, young people should aim to acquire the types of skills that could be used to set up their own business.
“Shift from training to become merely employable to acquiring business skills,” said Education, Science and Technological Research Assistant Minister Dr Annuar Rapaee.
To him, it is a must for young people to develop entrepreneurial skills to reduce unemployment among them.
“Students and graduates should be trained not to look for jobs but to create jobs for others,” he said when officiating at the launch of ‘Program Tunas Niaga 2019’ (Protune 2019) at Grand Margherita Hotel, yesterday.
Speaking about the mismatch of graduate qualification with the country’s labour needs, which is the prime cause of unemployment, he said 60 per cent of graduates were still unemployed a year after graduation.
Noting that Malaysia had a glut of graduates, Annuar attributed it to “too many universities and colleges” offering similar courses or subjects.
“This contributes to the increase in unemployment. The oversupply of doctors is a good example. Malaysia has 30 or so universities offering medical courses compared to Australia which has 13,” he said.
Back to entrepreneurial spirit and skills, he said they could be catalysts driving the economy.
He then urged teachers to promote creative thinking and problem-solving skills among their students because these were sought after by employers.
“We need to instil a creative and innovative culture so that our young people can develop their skills,” he said.
