Hong Kong 101 Project - A degree may not get you a job

A degree may not get you a job

Written by ADRIAN WAN CHUN-HO and CARINE TO
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
The number of local university graduates has been increasing since the introduction of the tertiary education expansion. Some people have complained that the increase of degree holders has led to keen competition among them, and holding a degree is no assurance of finding a job. TYR reporters ADRIAN WAN CHUN-HO and CARINE TO have investigated the problem. Debuted by former Chief Executive TungChe-hwa, the Tertiary education expansion was a key plank of the government’seducation policy in Hong Kong. Under the expansion, the percentage ofyoung people going on to higher education has risen from 33 percent in 2000 to66 percent last year. But as the number of degree holders hasincreased, their unemployment rate has also gone up. According to the Census and StatisticsDepartment, the unemployment rate of degree holders in the third quarter of2007 is 3.2 percent or 24,100 people, which is 1 percent or 7500 people higherthan the figure recorded in the second quarter of the same year. The figure indicates an increase in joblessdegree holders, and it ultimately shows that the rising number of degreeholders has led to keen competition among them. Holding a degree is not a greatadvantage in their hunt for a job. Mrs Shirley Ho Kit-shan, the administrationand account manager of Lions Kidney Education Centre, agreed that having adegree is no assurance of being employed, when she recalled her experience ofhiring a secretary for the company. Nearly 95 percent of the applicants receivedwere from degree holders with less than a year of work experience, Ho hired afresh graduate from the Universityof Hong Kong who hadmajored in English Literature, for the job’s emphasis on language skills. Though the graduate seemed to suit the job,Ho finally gave her up because she could not impress Ho within the probationperiod. Ho criticized her as “having decentacademic achievements, but had absolutely no clue what working in a company wasabout.” “The girl was like a silly billy, Icouldn’t take up the job of educating her here obviously, so I let her go,” Ho said. While some degree holders cannot get a jobbecause of their own weaknesses, some are jobless due to external factors. Phoebe Yeung Man-fung, a senior student atthe University of Hong Kong, realized that she might have difficultyfinding a job after she graduated, as her major, Food and Nutrition Science, isnot popular in Hong Kong. “My programme doesn’t come with aninternship or public exams, and I noticed it’s rare for private nutritioncentres or government departments to recruit full-time nutritionists. I wasbemused by how I should make my career,” Yeung said. With limited opportunities to get a job,Yeung decided to take Finance as a minor course, so as to broaden her scope ofdevelopment and competitiveness. But it does not mean that she has nothingto worry about. By taking Finance as a minor, she will sacrifice expertise inboth, despite having widened her possibilities. Besides, it will be hard for her to competewith the finance graduates, if she is to plunge into the popular field in Hong Kong. For a long time students have thought thatholding an overseas degree can privilege them in finding a job. But it seemsnot true anymore. Hodly Lau Tin-ho, a second-year student majoringin environmental studies at the Universityof Winnipeg in Canada, said itwas hard for graduates like her to find a job. She said even though she was aninternational student, she was not privileged to work in companies with Chineseinfluence, because employers perferred people who had specialised in localmatters. “Isn’t the economy in good shape? Wegraduates find it difficult to find a job. Some of us then try our luck in yetanother country. If not, I will probably sell cars here at last,” she said. Although the situation has changed, a largenumber of students are still scrambling to study overseas every year, withoutconsidering whether their potential employers will recognize their overseasdegrees or in what way. At present in HongKong there is no official system for recognition of non-localacademic qualifications, and recognition of academic qualifications is at thediscretion of employers, so overseas degrees can not guarantee the holders asuperiority in seeking jobs. Although overseas degree holders can askthe Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and VocationalQualifications (HKCAAVQ) to assess their academic qualifications, the Council’sassessment system tells us that overseas degrees do not essentially raisecompetitiveness. According to the HKCAAVQ website, theHKCAAVQ provides a non-binding professional opinion on the totality of one’seducational attainments, which means that employers can choose to accept theapplicants’ assessment results or not. Besides, as the Council will finallytransfer the applicant’s overseas academic qualifications into the Hong Kong equivalents, they have nothing to do withimpressing the potential employers. Although holding a degree seems to be aminimum requirement in a job application, students can equip themselves betterin different ways to increase their competitiveness after graduation. Ms Yeung, the student who has taken financeas minor, said she would find some places in small firms and gain practicalexperience before treading into the battlefield, after she realized that shehas to compete with the finance graduates in seeking a job. Ms Lau, the Environmental Studies student,has searched for an internship overseas in order to find a job in herprofession. She will be working as an intern at a marine ecological laboratoryin Australiafor the next six months. “This is a job I want to do. I hope I canwork as an ecologist upon graduation,’ she said. The administration and account manager ofLions Kidney Education Centre, Mrs Ho, suggested students look for the jobswhich they truly fancy, because they can not perform well in fields they do notlike to work in. The Centre of Development and Resources forStudents (CEDARS) in the Universityof Hong Kong alsosuggested graduated job seekers be specific about what they want. “You can’t hit a target you can’t see. Bypinpointing a job, you can pick companies that are the right fit for you,” aspokesperson said. The Placement Centre in Hong Kong BaptistUniversity said knowingand understanding oneself was the first step in job searching. It was essentialto understand one’s weaknesses and shortcomings so as to minimise them. Although the Census and StatisticsDepartment’s figures show that the number of jobless degree holders in Hong Kong has increased last year, the Education Bureauis optimistic about the situation. A spokesman for the Education Bureau saidthe employment situation of graduates at various levels remains good and theunemployment rate of graduates was as low as 1.4 per cent in December 2006. He added that the demand for tertiaryeducation has been increasing as Hong Kong ismoving towards the development of a knowledge-based economy. Richard G. Bagnall, a professor in theDepartment of Educational Policy & Administration at the Hong KongInstitute of Education, does not think the increasing number of degree holdersis a problem in Hong Kong, as long asgraduates can find themselves jobs. “It would not be bad if more and morepeople in Hong Kong receive higher education,” he said. David A. Watkins, a professor in theFaculty of Education at the Universityof Hong Kong, said he was aware ofsuch a problem in the mainland China,but he did not think the situation here was as bad. About a million of last year’s 4.7 milliongraduates had been unable to find a job, according to the Chinese Academyof Social Sciences’ Blue Book on Social Development. Graduates who have spent tens of thousandsof Yuan for four-year degrees, have been unable to find jobs for months andeven years. Some complained that the situation wascaused by the university authorities in China, which have blindly pursuedexpansion in the past few years at the expense of teaching quality. Edited by RONEY CHAN CHI WING Comments (0) Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form Name Email Comment Write the displayed characters
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 20 May 2008 )