8/14/2019 TheSun 2009-11-02 Page12 Who is Prospering From
Jobless Grads
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speak up!12 theSun | MONDAY NOVEMBER 2 2009
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TELLING IT AS IT IS
by Sonia Randhawa
MY first weekend at university was exciting. From anarchaic
university ceremony, where we were acceptedas undergraduates, my
friends and I raced to catcha bus to take us into Lon don for one
of the largestdemonstrations that year, against the rise of the
BritishNational Party, a far-right party. While the demonstra-tion
ended in chaos, I managed to escape the turmoil,and had a generally
exhilarating time. I was helping inthe fight against fascism, and
it felt great.
Unfortunately, it wasnt enough. Since the begin-ning of their
comeback in the early 1990s, the BNPhas increased in strength in
every election. And Britainhas always been less amenable to extreme
partiesthan the countries of continental Europe. In Hungary,there
are concerns that a far-right party will enter intogovernment in
the coming elections, and the righthas been rising across the
former Communist states.And while slightly further from power, the
80s saw
the turning of the fortunesof the far-right in WesternEurope and
despite occa-sional setbacks they stillwield disproportionate
influence.But it was in JulysEuropean Union electionsthat the
far-right showedtheir ability to bring invoters. In an election
withan abysmally low turnout,the far-right managed toget as much as
17% of thevotes in Austria and theNetherlands, along with
seats from the UK, Hungary and Slovakia. This meansthey have
more money and resources at their disposal,and have a solid
foundation on which to build.
The causes of this rise are being continually ana-lysed, from
the failure of the left to engage the workingclass to the pandering
of the centre-right to the ex-tremist agenda (particularly in the
areas of immigrationand dealing with Islam). Their supporters, at
least inthe UK, actively campaign that there is an
Islamisationprocess going on in Europe, and that this needs to
bebattled. Literally, at times.
But theres one general trend that is behind it. The
failure of more centrist parties to meet the challengeswe face
today. Since the neo-con agenda of the 1980stook its stranglehold
on economic discourse, the gapbetween rich and poor both between
and within na-tions has been widening as true of Malaysia as it
isthe countries of Europe. According to some sources,even on the
right, the majority of people have beengetting poorer, as wages
stopped keeping pace withinflation. And things arent looking any
brighter forEuropes young. When I was at university in the UK,the
only people to drop out were those that, for onereason or another,
could not cope with the stress andworkload. For my sisters at
university today, their Brit-ish counterparts are finding they cant
afford to be atuniversity, the fees and the cost of living
conspiring tokeep them from tertiary education. While this couldbe
justified if more spending was going to other partsof the education
system, that just isnt happening. Asone Guardian editorial noted,
the only minority thathas consistently been defended by successive
govern-ments is millionaires.
And the challenges arent going to go away. In De-cember,
governments will be meeting in Copenhagento decide how to move
forward in the battle againstclimate change. Generally, I dislike
using militarymetaphors, but perhaps its the only way to
illustratethe severity of the problem. Conservative
scientificestimates say we need to cut emissions by 40% rightnow to
avoid disaster. More radical estimates abound.And yet, in Europe,
home to some of the worlds worstcarbon culprits, debates on
restricting immigration andIslamisation are holding sway, climate
tucked away ina forgotten percentile of votes.
The far-right isnt about to take a platform advocat-ing climate
justice. But then, neither is anyone else inthe West, with the
exception of some of the Greens(and possibly the Swedish Pirate
Party, in favour ofInternet file swapping).
It may seem a long way removed from the poli-ticking of
Malaysias parties. But the problems facingEuropes natural parties
of government are the sameone our politicians are ignoring. While
the rhetoric ofrace, religion and internal bickering pervade our
politi-cal landscape, just as the far-right has resurrected themin
Europe, the problems we face today, and, worse, theproblems of
tomorrow, are becoming increasingly hardto solve.
Sonia thinks liberty and equality are the only realguarantors of
security. Comments: [email protected]
FreespaceWhere young views rule
The riseof the right
Comment by Dr Lim Teck Ghee
DATUKSeri Najib Razaks 2010Budget is called 1Malaysia,Together
we prosper. Beforethe prime ministers multi-million ringgit
sloganeering,his predecessor Tun AbdullahAhmad Badawi had
introducedthe Prosper theme. Abdul-lah in his Oct 30, 2005
budgetspeech announced Prosperor Projek pembangunan usaha-wan dalam
bidang peruncitanto help graduates venture intobusiness. Under
Prosper, Per-badanan Usahawan Nasional
Berhad (PUNB) would finance200 graduates up to RM50,000each;
that easily amounts toRM10 million.
Prosper is an ongoingprogramme and this year, itsattachment
training will allowparticipants to intern in PUNBinvestee
companies. The costof ensuring this prosperity is,however, not open
to publicknowledge.
Nonetheless, the RM10 mil-lion allocated in AbdullahsBudget 2006
is clearly a dropin the ocean compared to theRM700 million set
aside inNajibs March 10 mini-budget.The latters stimulus
packageplanned to create 163,000 train-ing and job placement
oppor-tunities for retrenched workersand unemployed graduates.
Of this number, 50,000will be absorbed into the civilservice,
adding to its alreadyobese size and bloated payroll.It is important
to note thatunder the RM191.5 billion1Malaysia Budget, 72.2% isfor
operating expenditure, outof which RM42.2 billion is foremoluments.
Furthermore lastmonth, a special financial con-tribution (announced
earlier)in the form of a year-end bonustotalling RM400 million will
bepaid to public sector employeesfrom Grades 41 to 54.
Treasuringhuman capital
It is true that other parts ofthe world also face the problemof
workers getting laid off andschool leavers unable to find
jobs due to the depressed globaleconomy.
However, Malaysias num-bers are staggering. Based onestimates,
about 60,000 gradu-ates might find it difficult toseek employment
at all times,said Najib when launching theGraduate Employability
Man-agement Scheme (GEMS) onMarch 13.
GEMS is run by KhazanahNasional Berhad under the ae-gis of the
Finance Ministry. Theprecursor to GEMS is the Grad-uate
Employability Enhance-ment (GREEN) programme,also tasked to
Khazanah inco-operation with GLCs.
We can safely assume that
a proportion of these targetedgraduates have not been able
tofind work in the fields in whichthey hold the requisite
paperqualification. Meanwhile, thegovernment continues to fail
toaddress the longstanding lack of
relevance of the courses taughtin the public universities andthe
low standards of graduatesproduced.
Instead of getting it rightfrom the get-go through struc-tural
reform of the higher edu-cation system (and better stillthe entire
schooling system),our authorities are attempt-ing to fix the
shortcomings ofgraduates who flounder in thecompetitive marketplace
bypouring money to correct theirmis-education.
It is all the more worryingwhen Khazanahs director ofstrategic
human capital man-agement Azman Mohd Husseinreveals that the
unemployedgraduates have to be givenremedial and practical
trainingfor a whole year to improvetheir communication skills
andincrease their level of confi-dence.
And similar to the Prosperscenario, the public are notcognizant
of Khazanahs ex-penditure breakdown either.
Hitting rock bottomsoon?
Somethings very wrongwhen the situation keeps gettingfrom bad to
worse with no lightat the end of the tunnel.
As early as Sept 25, 2001,then prime minister Tun DrMahathir
Mohamad had un-
veiled an economic stimuluspackage which earmarkedRM150 million
for 10,000degree and diploma holders.This allowed them to learn
IT,brush up on mathematics andEnglish, in addition to provid-ing
RM500 monthly allowanceson a temporary basis until end-2002.
Temporary appears to havebeen a misplaced optimism be-cause the
chronic problem haspersisted for nearly a decadenow.
Between January 2004 andJune 2005, the governmentshuman
resources developmentfund paid out RM265.2 millionin training
grants to individuals.From November 2001 until mid-2006, the
Graduate TrainingScheme had retrained almost22,000 unemployed
graduates,then human resources minister
Dr Fong Chan Onn disclosed inhis paper Developing humancapital
delivered on Aug 21,2006.
Nonetheless, on Dec 27, 2007a paper presented by the Insti-tute
of Islamic Understanding(Ikim) quoted a comment fromthe minister on
the inadequatesuccess rate of the retraining.Ikim research officer
Nor Harti-ni Saari said roughly RM500million had been expended
inretraining.
Two years down the road on
Oct 20, 2009, Higher EducationMinister Mohd Khaled Nordinstill
talked about RM48 millionspent in university partnershipswith
corporations in strategicsectors that could improveinnovation-based
industriesand guarantee graduates of jobopportunities.
Unless our public coffers arereplenished by King Midas,
thegovernment may soon go brokefrom the guarantees.
It is just not sustainableto have the next generationdepend on
the nanny state evenafter they have been providedwith ample
tertiary educationopportunities, with gener-ous financial
assistance andbabysitting after graduation,and eventually bailouts
everystep of the way.
Raiding the publictreasury
Various ministries andentrepreneurial agencies haveset up their
own graduateretraining programme and thismakes the tracking of
fiscalallocations difficult.
For example, the RM7 billionstimulus package revealed byNajib on
Nov 4 last year allo-cated RM300 million for a skillstraining
programme fund (withfocus on tourism and businessprocess
outsourcing sectorsamong others); RM200 millionfor programmes by
privatetraining institutions and RM100million for youth
programmesat various levels we see herethree intersecting
areas.
Then there is another RM70million to facilitate employ-ment of
retrenched employeesand graduates seeking jobs,a special allocation
approved
by the cabinet as announcedby Human Resources MinisterDr S.
Subramaniam on Jan 21,2009 in Putrajaya.
The RM70 million couldwell be a tranche from theRM600
million-infusion forskills training under NajibsRM7 billion package
a yearago. Or then again, maybe not... who knows. In any case,
theRM600 million was augmentedby another whopping RM700million
barely four months laterunder Najibs second stimuluspackage.
When so many quarters are
involved in the overlappingeffort between governmentagencies,
GLCs, and the privatesector, only the special com-mittees
established to managethe funds know the full details.
Even the auditor-generalsoffice probably does not havethe
complete picture of howmuch money is being pouredinto remedying
incompetencein the public universities. Andwhat the results have
been. If itdoes, it would be very importantfor the public accounts
commit-tee to put this information out inthe public domain.
It may be argued that the factthat these public funds seemto be
going towards so manyfacilitators and consultancycompanies shows a
prima-rily liberal and laissez-faire
approach used by the govern-ment to tackle the problem.
Also of some relief is thatno monopoly seems to haveappeared in
cornering themarket.
The crush of agencies,ministries and private agentsseeking
participation in thisfast-growing industry ofenhancing graduate
employ-ability should reassure us thatthere are droves of
Malaysianswho are driven by patriotism tohelp our hapless
graduates. Theunkind among us may suspectthat making a quick buck
orrather making buckets of bucks is more the real motivation.
No solution in sight
Considering that many ofour young adults are no surerof securing
jobs after gradua-tion today than they were in2001 and three prime
ministersago, the public and the currentundergraduate
populationhave a right to demand a fullaccounting of the huge sums
oftaxpayers money spent.
We also need to know theoutcome of independent impactstudies
that can provide empiri-cal data on how effective or in-effective
this massive injectionof public funds has been.
In the parliamentary debatetaking place on the 2010 Budget,there
needs to be an explanationon where the total RM1.3
billionappropriated over the recentyear for training and
retraining
purposes went to. And who hasprospered from the money.
Dr Lim Teck Ghee is director,Centre for Policy
Initiatives.Feedback: [email protected].
Retraining for graduates and youth
* The outline table above is incomplete as information is
unavailable in the public domain
Who is prospering
fromjobless grads?
Unemployed graduates
Shellsone-litrechallengeis backpg 16
