Our Course outlines, our jobless graduates and Job market
The irony is that our students are graduating with high grades but not getting their aimed jobs. The hiring companies said that the graduates which universities are producing are lacking skills which are required in the professional environment of the cooperate sector. Why a 3.7 or 3.8 or even a student with a 3.9+ CGPA is not meeting the requirements of the industries. Where is a hole? Where is a glitch? Is a student who is always getting 80 0r above 80% marks or even 90% grades in his or her academic sheets is not capable of getting the skills which the cooperate sector required? Are these skills in reality above the intellectual level of students?
I am a Chemist, a graduate student of class 2020. For the last six months, I searched job opportunities for a chemist and see the requirements of those jobs which the industry demands from a chemist. After seeing the requirements of the industries I searched about the courses and their outlines which Pakistani universities offered to a Graduate during 4 years of their bachelor degree. I am surprised to see industries hired a chemist in the quality insurance department mostly and the No University of Pakistan is offering a single course of ‘Quality Assurance’ in their BS or even in MS programs. There is no course which is meeting the expectation of the industry. I am surprised and thinking why universities are just preparing chemists for the teaching profession? Why they are not preparing chemists for the other careers which a chemist can opt for. Why we are not designing courses like that by taking which a student can work in Forensic department, in Courts, in quality assurance department of the industries, in chemical testing labs of textile, food, paints, medicines, polymers, etc.
https://www.mendeley.com/careers/news/careers-jobs-field/top-10-chemistry-jobs
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/college-to-career/chemistry-careers.html
And the second most hurtful thing for students is that industries asked about the hands-on experience on the instruments and in most government universities (have no idea about private universities) students don’t have permission to use these instruments ( i.e GC-MS, FTIR, AAS, and many others) and industries demand that student should know how to operate it. And a research student even has no permission to use these instruments to get the results of their samples. The worst thing is that a BS OR even an MS research student research samples are analyzed by a person who has no knowledge about that instrument but is trained up to a level that he can operate it. And universities are not thinking that their students are capable of a level that they provide training to their students to operate these instruments. Then I think a technician is best than a graduate to whom university like to hand over its expensive instrument.
Why in the 21st century HEC is still providing the courses which HEC offers to students in the 20th century? Why we are just giving degrees which are not providing that skill set to students which job market demand? Is HEC is so busy that they could not have time that they sit with Job providers and design their courses again? Why HEC foreign qualified people are not realizing that they are giving just a piece of paper on the name of degree? A number of affiliated colleges that have no lab facilities even for simple experiments are giving BS Chemistry degree then who will provide job to these students? Why HEC is not paying attention to this all? Why we are producing a crowd of degree holders without assuring the quality?
Mah Gull Syed
