Net Value: Foreign-trained or local?

Karamjit: Do you think our universities are churning out students with the right skills? Is there a difference in the quality of students coming out from the public versus private sectors or local versus those coming from overseas?
Chee: I spoke to my director of software engineering because he does the hiring. I asked him to distinguish between local and foreign graduates. And he was very fast with the answer. He said that local graduates have skills that are more suitable for us.
It seems that now, the skills of local graduates are aligned with what we need. And then I asked him about overseas graduates. He said they are more general but have more exposure, tend to be more innovative and creative. So on the local side, they are aligned with what we need, which means they are productive but they take instructions and they don't ask but the foreign-trained guys may not know as much but they take the trouble to ask and they can surprise you! So that's the difference.
And one thing about locals, apparently in the schools, lecturers tend to give them outrageous salary numbers that won't happen in reality. So local graduates won't stay long. At most, they stay one year. So at KarenSoft, we prefer not to take them, because we cannot afford it. In the first six months, you are a liability to us. Subsequently, when you become a little bit more useful, you're gone because your lecturer told you that you are getting paid less than you should be getting.
Amazingly enough, at KarenSoft, most of those that stay long are the foreign-trained graduates. It was a revelation to me. I would have expected it to be the other way round. In other words, local graduates demand more than what the market will pay given their abilities and they tend to move on. On the positive side, their skills are aligned nicely. So universities are doing something right.
But if you are talking about pure workhorses, it's not graduates you want but diploma holders. They come from more deprived educational backgrounds and are lean, mean and hungry and willing to go all the way. And they can work very hard. At KarenSoft, we don't say just because you are a diploma holder, you cannot write software. No, we don't actually bother about the entry point. We want to know what you can deliver for the company (see Page 5).

Karamjit: I think we should move to Dr Ewe. So, how much have you been telling your students they should be paid?
Ewe: We do not tell the students what they can expect to be paid because we understand that the job offers they get from the multinational corporations (MNCs) and local companies will be different, depending on the job scope. We are trying hard to train them not only in technical skills but also in communication skills. We are trying to give them more exposure.
We are also trying to internationalise our university. Currently, we have students from 73 countries. We hope that with this environment and with all the student activities, they will become more creative. We understand that the majority comes from our local education system, which may not promote enough creative thinking. We also have other activities like programming competitions. So we try to encourage creative thinking.
We are also keen on getting feedback from industry. We understand that there are a lot of different opinions about the approach. Some may say you have to go deep so that they are suitable for research jobs. Some will say I want them to be able to work right away and develop things. So we are looking to provide an environment where our students learn basic, sound fundamental skills, so that they can explore more on their own and will have a passion for lifelong learning.

Karamjit: So it's important to tell students that how far they go depends on themselves. They have to strive to be curious and just go for it. In fact, this is what the head of an R&D unit of an MSC company once told me. He said the desire of many graduates in Malaysia to further themselves is just not there. So it's good that MMU tries to implant this in your students.
Ewe: I have something to add. For the past few years, we have been talking about unemployed graduates in IT. But actually, the demand is very high. Last year, we placed over 900 students in industrial training from the IT faculty. In fact, we have more demand than supply.
This year, we have one second-year student doing his paid industrial training in Finland. Imagine that there is a company from Finland coming here to look for industrial trainees! He'll be paid for four months to work with a team to develop a search engine that the company says will compete with Google.
Also, we are concerned about reports in the media about the high unemployment of ICT graduates. This affects us as some parents are advising their children not to pursue a career in IT. But, in fact, now is the best time to go into ICT because the demand is very high and we need a lot of ICT graduates to continue to move the nation forward.

Karamjit: It's sad that parents are still trying to dictate what field their children should go into. But let's not get into that.
Dinesh: Fifteen or twenty years ago, if you grew up in an Indian family, you had to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. But at least today, the software industry has reached there, so now they include software programmer.
As for the local or foreign bit, maybe I'm biased because my company has a 100% local graduate staff. What Dr Ewe mentioned is a fairly accurate representation of what is happening in public local universities. There is an effort to create education without focusing on technology. But a lot of private universities and colleges are diploma mills or degree mills, where they train people in specific technologies. What's bad about this is that if the technology changes five years from now, that person is suddenly worthless, as opposed to someone who is trained in computer science or software engineering. If someone understands software engineering, it does not matter what language you write it in because the principles are the same.
Butt: I feel there isn't a best answer to whether there should be more fundamental academics or vocational academics coming from the universities. In any case, a graduate doesn't really know what he wants. It's actually the first job that determines what kind of career path the graduate takes.
In some ways, the role (of finding a career path) has to be played in the first year of nurturing by the first company and not only in the university. In the case where Dinesh mentioned that technical people couldn't go further after 5 or 10 years, I think it's because they do not communicate well and they don't market their ideas well. If I have the greatest idea and I cannot communicate that and convince people, that's my problem.
There's not much of a difference between a local and foreign graduate. The difference is in the value system they carry. Many are risk averse, particularly Asians. The passion to take an idea through to the end, whether you fail or succeed, tends to be lacking. Maybe it's our fundamental system even before they get to university. And those who are very smart may not speak out.
Compare this to the foreign education system. They tend to have better vocal communication skills. And again, it's the first few years where the employer will nurture the right people out there. It's not just the university. That's why it is important to have a bridging programme that offers on-the-job training or internship and those are very good programmes that I encourage all universities and colleges to offer.
Fernandez: I agree with Butt, particularly on industrial training. I think, however, that it shouldn't be left to the last semester. The institutes should consider allowing for industrial training to be conducted over six months and it should be done after the second year so that the student is exposed to the real commercial environment.
This will lead them to understand where the gaps are in what they are learning versus what they should and in the course of the final year they can take some action. This will make them really appreciate the true value of the training. It will help in terms of learning and cultivating that spirit of curiosity so that they can go back and apply what they learnt in their final year.
As for the question of local versus foreign, the local universities' curriculum is a lot better now than in my time. I compare an industrial trainee now with one three years ago and I can see the difference. However, it's only certain universities and colleges, not all. MMU and APIIT are examples of places that are churning out graduates who are market-ready.
Butt: But even if you have a traditional curriculum, as a student, you have to make the best of it. I think a lot of it depends on the right attitude. If the course is really easy, then spend the time to do research! As a student, you should have a vision of wanting to do big things. Then you can excel even in a mediocre college. The attitude is very important. You have to do a lot of counselling so that they aspire to have a good attitude.
Dinesh: You also need the right faculty that understands that. Granted, I went to university during more oppressive times when professors would lecture their students and not engage in two-way learning but I am the type who likes to figure things out on my own. So I used to spend late nights at the USM computer labs and the staff knew me so well that they gave me the key to lock up. Some members of the faculty were disturbed that a mere undergraduate was holding the key and they complained to the dean. My dean looked them straight in the face and said, "That's exactly the type of undergraduates we want."
Butt: Good point. Also, some students pick easier courses because they are easier to pass rather than pick the really tough ones and risk not passing even though they will really learn so much. It's so hard to find the latter type of student.
Dinesh: The situation in public universities is more liberal now. Previously, it used to be the professor telling students what to do. Today, there is more room for creativity and it's more two-way so things have changed.
Ewe: I agree. We always encourage students to do something additional. At MMU, students organise their own courses and teach them at night. We provide labs for them and they teach the classes at night. These are very popular and last trimester, we had 12 to 14 such courses. This is how we can help students explore their own interests.


By the netv@lue2.0 team


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