academic institution ambiguity

Guys, today I am posting some serious stuff.
My blonde hair turn red like a librarian girl today.
So please just read the highlighted ones if you prefer to be blonde today.
Hik.

Once, my lecturer friend told me about his experience of being interviewed. He was asked with this very interesting question:

“What do you think of the recent opinion that fresh graduates from public universities are having no quality, and couldn’t cope with the working environment?”

I have been listening to this cliché issue for a few times.

I think the more appropriate question is that:

“What do you think of the recent opinion that public universities, compared to private education institutions, are now backdated, and not relevant to produce good graduates?”

Generally I have had this view that private education is only for those who have no choice, not qualified and unable to go to the public universities. This was quite true back in the eighties but after twenty years passed, things have changed and improved.

Today, private institutions would be the first choice for students to obtain their higher education. The number of students in private institutions outnumbered the students in public universities, not just because “they don’t have choice”, but because of their own preference.

Private institutions have better medium of instruction, and the education syllabus is more recognized and suitable for the current demand, not only locally, but also overseas.

Employers would often question why graduates from public universities cannot perform quick enough compared to those from private institutions. The academic staff would suggest that students should always be totally independent to gain knowledge in their study years, but by such assumption, more than half of the students would be left out. Of course a large number would still gain “passes”, but the question is, how relevant is the knowledge and experienced collected through the academic process, compared to what is demanded in the current world?

Without sufficient guidance, encouragement and not to mention the syllabus which remains to that of the pass few years, it doesn’t help much to produce good graduates.

True that it’s up to the initiative to the students to learn. However, the public institutions can choose to take the role of nurturing the students’ interest towards the respective industry of the course that they are studying. By this, they can have the will to practice a habit of proactively getting involved in any event that is relevant to their certificate.

Talks and discussions, group outdoor activities, workshops and researches, and extra courses are suggestions to help the students to be aware with all the current issues and skills regarding to their field. These extra but relevant activities can be rigorously encouraged by the public universities as a requirement before they can be given with academic certificate.

And of course, assessment should be done on the syllabus of public universities, whether or not they are relevant to the current world. The syllabus is still focusing too much on the foundation basics, and some are not really significant for a student to graduate and perform in their career life. The recent technologies of today’s world, if included in the syllabus, could make it more useful for the students to excel after they own their certificates.

Public institutions should be aware that they have to keep up with the trend, if they would want to gain trustworthy excellence compared to what has now being offered by the private institutions.

Notes:

::Today, there are 16 private universities, 17 private university college, 15 local university campus, 4 foreign university campus, and 490 private colleges.

::490 private colleges varies from small college which have only 100 students and practice only one accounting course, or a very huge medical college which have 3000 students and offers not less than ten different disciplines for diploma certificate.

::Malaysian Qualification Framework 2007-
Introduced to regulate the syllabus of both of public and private education institutions, so as to maintain the balance of quality of both institutions.

::The term “certificates recognized by JPA” doesn’t mean that the certificates not recognized by JPA is not good. It means that either that these graduates are either over qualified or having different qualifications not demanded by JPA.