Global survey: Over a third of students worried about Covid-19 impact on career opportunities
DESPITE the world regaining a sense of post-pandemic normalcy, students are not confident about landing a job upon graduating.
Four in 10 students (39%), a recent global survey found, believe Covid-19 has permanently damaged their employment prospects.
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Like their foreign counterparts, 36% of Malaysian students said they share the insecurity when it comes to their career opportunities.
According to the 2022 Global Student Survey, a whopping 70% of our students said this could be due to the pandemic negatively impacting their study life experiences.
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This is higher than the global percentage where six in 10 students (60%) said that the pandemic ruined their college or university experience.However, despite saying the pandemic will affect their chances of landing a job, nearly 80% of Malaysian students expressed optimism that a higher education qualification will see them through.
More than two-thirds of students (68%) worldwide think that their education is preparing them well for the job market, with only 14% disagreeing.
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The survey conducted by impact, advocacy, and research organisation Chegg.org, involved 17,170 higher education students from 21 countries.
The undergraduates were asked about their hopes, fears, and overall state of mind throughout their lives studying in a pandemic.
Interviews were conducted using an online survey methodology between Jan 4 and 25 this year.
But concerns among students over how Covid-19 has affected their education are not unique to Malaysia.
Chegg president and chief executive officer Dan Rosensweig said the survey shows that students are having a challenging and disorienting time as they resume their studies, and they are graduating into a shifting global economy with an uncertain future.
“Questions remain for many over how strongly their degrees will relate to their eventual professions or the wider workplace, and about the value for money of their education generally,” he said in the survey report.
The survey echoed the findings of Malaysia’s graduate tracer study revealed by Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Noraini Ahmad on May 24.
Attributing it to the pandemic, Noraini said the marketability of Malaysian graduates in 2020 dropped by 1.8% to 84.4% compared to 86.2% in 2019.
“As a strategic reaction to avoid a further drop, the ministry implemented several intervention initiatives to increase the marketability rate of graduates by 1.1% to 85.5% by 2021,” she said at the Education World Forum (EWF) in London.The ministry, she added, would be implementing five initiatives to address the drop in employability.
The measures, outlined by the ministry on May 25, were: a reskilling and upskilling programme known as the KPT-Career Advancement Programme (KPT-CAP); the Teaching Factory programme; the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Transformation Programme; flexible and micro-credential programmes, as well as mobility programmes.
Rosensweig said today’s students will be meeting some of the greatest challenges in history, including widening inequality, automation, and climate change.
“At present, they are going through one of the most difficult times in their lives.
“Everyone in the education ecosystem must strive to give them a supportive learning environment, as well as cultivate their dreams, insights and creativity.
“If we do this, then the class of Covid-19 can still break new ground, create fresh opportunities, and protect our global society well into the future,” he said, adding that the resulting data can help governments, businesses and higher education better support students now and in the future. — By REBECCA RAJAENDRAM