THE Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Ministry (Medac) will be organising the PROTÉGÉ-Ready to Work (RTW) programme to help about 5,000 unemployed graduates to gain jobs.
The programme, managed by Medac’s PROTÉGÉ unit, will place participants in Government departments, agencies and Government-linked companies (GLC) under a short-term employment scheme.
“This is crucial to help the Government to address issues concerning unemployment among graduates, especially in today’s challenging times of COVID-19 environment.
“Unemployment among graduates is something that requires intervention from the Government. Through programmes such as PROTÉGÉ, we hope to give these graduates the necessary work exposure by working in these organisations.
“Hopefully by the end of their tenure, these graduates will acquire new skills and experience that would significantly improve their marketability among employers,” its minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said, in a statement.
There are currently about 232,000 jobless graduates nationwide. Compounded with the challenging economic environment, it will be difficult for them, especially the freshies, to secure employment.
Too much theory, less practical skills
On the problem, Wan Junaidi said that skills mismatch has been identified as among the main reasons for the graduates’ lack of marketability among employers, particularly those in the private sector.
He added that the knowledge and skills acquired during their studies do not meet the demands and requirements of the industry, thus making it difficult for graduates to get jobs.
“In addition, poor English proficiency is also identified as a reason for their lack of marketability.
“The main role of higher learning institutions is to educate undergraduates but they focus on the theoretical aspects of that learning process, without preparing them with skills and knowledge that would make these graduates readily employable.
“My ministry trying to assist the Government in addressing this skills mismatch issue. We are now discussing with our agency, Cooperative Institute of Malaysia (IKM), on how they can help come up with more training programmes for graduates to equip them with skills required by the industries,” Wan Junaidi stated.
PROTÉGÉ, short for Professional Training and Education for Growing Entrepreneurs, is a unit under Medac tasked to carry out programmes to help improve graduates’ marketability in the job market and cultivate entrepreneurship skills.
A rebrand of Skim Latihan 1Malaysia (SL1M), this programme involves collaborations with industry players, thus providing on the job trainings to equip graduates with the skills required by industries. – Feb 16, 2021.
