Civil Service Dump for Unemployed Graduates

So it has come to this. The local higher education system, both public and private, expanded its intake and "graduate" production capabilities at breakneck speed over the past 5-10 years. Over the last 5 years, the number of degree students enrolled in our tertiary institutions increased by 40.0% from 230,726 (2000) to 322,917 (2005). The corresponding impact of such explosive growth was the lowering of standards at our tertiary institutions as well as the entry criteria for enrolment. The ultimate impact - tens of thousands of unemployed (or unemployable) graduates.

To solve this issue, the Cabinet has instructed the Public Service Department (PSD) to sweep all these unemployed graduates under the carpet by employing them, and pretend that the source of the problems never existed.

The Public Services Department (PSD) and Public Services Commission have been urged to speed up the recruitment of graduates to fill some 30,000 vacancies in the civil service.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said this would overcome the problem of unemployed graduates, which had reached the 60,000 mark. This was among the recommendations made at the special committee chaired by Najib yesterday to discuss the issue of unemployed graduates.

Hence, our civil service has officially become the dump for our unemployable graduates. And the message to our undergraduates appears to be "Don't worry, if you can't find jobs, the Government will provide for you." The irony of it is what our Deputy Prime Minister says next.

"If we can speed up recruitment, we can reduce the number of unemployed graduates, and also increase the efficiency of the civil service."

So we populate our civil service with graduates nobody wants and we expect the civil service to improve in efficiency? Gosh.

With our graduates pool expected to increase at an accelerated pace for the next 5 years when enrolment is expected to be at 428,000 by 2010, are we then going to have one of the largest civil service in the world on a per capita basis? After all, we already have in all likelihood, one of the largest cabinet in the world.