Mustapha (back, right), Liew (back, centre) and Peto (left) posing with winners of a lucky draw during the Christmas and New Year celebration.
KOTA KINABALU (Dec 30): The Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) will step up its efforts to reduce the national youth unemployment rate next year.
Its deputy minister, Datuk Mustapha Sakmud, said the number of unemployed youth in Malaysia is still high at 10.1 percent, and the ministry will be discussing to what practical level they can bring down the unemployment rate to.
He said his ministry will be carrying out several initiatives to improve the marketability of graduates in the country, such as to have career carnivals brought to the university level by giving Students’ Representative Councils and volunteer students the chance to manage them.
“We want to train these students on how to manage career carnivals to empower the students so they can gain experience on managing a large event.
“At the same time, they will also be able to see the potential of and interact with the companies that they invite to the carnivals, allowing them to identify which industries have vacancies.
“This would be a good experience for them as it will also attract their interest to study matters related to the industries,” he said during a Christmas and New Year celebration at the Manggatal Community Hall here on Saturday.
Mustapha said the ministry is also planning to have universities to be more industry-driven to create more graduates who are actually sought by industries or companies.
He said this is to reduce the number of students graduating with no job opportunities, and he reiterated the ministry will intensify its efforts to reduce the youth unemployment rate in the country.
“This endeavour requires cooperation from all relevant parties. Hence, MoHE will be working closely with other ministries, including the Ministry of Human Resource, in this effort,” he said.
Also present were State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew and Inanam assemblyman Peto Galim.