Nearly 60 percent of first-degree holders and above remain unemployed after one year of graduating, according to Education Minister Maszlee Malik.

He said the facts were based on findings from the Ministry of Education Malaysia's Graduate Tracer Study (SKPG) for 2018.

"The number of graduates who have not been employed after one year of graduation for the first-degree holders and above is 30,765 persons or 59.9 percent of the 51,365 graduates," he said in a written response posted on the Parliament website here today.

He was replying to a question by Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (BN-Bagan Datoh) who wanted to know how many postgraduate students were found to be unemployed and what steps had been taken by the ministry to address the issue.

In this regard, Maszlee said the ministry had implemented a rigorous preliminary screening of the programmes offered by public universities.

He said public universities needed to conduct detailed analysis studies, including market studies of academic programmes to be offered, frozen or disposed of.

The academic programmes offered, he said, should also take into account the employment and critical needs that had been studied and presented by the PSD, Department of Statistics Malaysia, Institute of Labour Market Information and Analysis (Ilmia), Talentcorp, Jobstreet and related agencies present in the preliminary screening meetings and programme certification.

Responding to Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub's (BN-Machang) question on the ministry's actual plans for the 21 Teachers' Training Institute (IPG) said to be closed, Maszlee said a special committee was being formed to look into the specific planning and direction of IPG.

"All 27 IPGs across the country have been maintained to carry out the functions of teacher training as well as professional development training for in-service teachers," he said. - Bernama