Employability of Islamic Studies Graduates in Malaysia

Abstract

Rising trend in graduated unemployment especially after the deep aconomic recession experienced by the Malaysian economy precipatated by the East Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 has become a national issue. Policy makers, academic administrators, stakeholders and the public alike are greatly concerned with graduate employability or a lack of it. A lack of employabilty has a negative impact on the ability of the graduates to obtain employment.One dimension of employability is having the skills and knowledge required to acquired and retain a job (saterfield and McLarty, 1995). A graduate who is not equipped with the required skills may find it diffilcut to obtain employment, let alone to retain it. In the Malaysian context, the often cited reasons for graduate unemployment are lack of communication skills, poor command of english and no work experience. this book reports the findings of a researchon graduate employability of islamic studies graduates from local universities viz. UKM, UIAM, and UM which offer islamic studies programs. the sample consisted of graduates who completed their studies at the end of 1999/2000 academic session and received their degrees in 2000. the studies sought information on the key skills that have been given or transferred to the graduates during the course of theirs studies in their respective universities. from the findings, unemployed Islamic studies graduates in the sample chosen were, by their own assessment, lacking in many of the soft skills such as communication skills, English proficiency skill, interviewing and ICT skills. As a comparison, employed Islamic studies graduates in the sample chosen listed in order of importance academic achievment, communication skills, English proficiency skills, self confidence and field of study as the major factors influencing employability.