KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 — The DAP today urged Putrajaya to withdraw the Computing Professionals Bill (CPB) and focus instead on improving the quality of graduates in the industry and levelling the playing field for IT companies bidding for government contracts.Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said these were the more “obvious” policy measures the government could take to boost the local industry towards meeting world-class standards instead of introducing the “half-baked” CPB which, he said, would impose further restrictions.
“The first is to deal with the supply issue of quality of graduates who intend to participate in the computing industry.
“It is one of the biggest paradoxes in the Malaysian job market when the largest pool of unemployed university graduates are those holding computing-related qualifications, and yet there is a demand for thousands of computer-related positions advertised in local newspapers and job-recruitment portals,” he said in a statement.
Pua (picture) also cited statistics from the Human Resources Ministry in 2006, noting that science graduates form the largest percentage of those seeking employment, with 19.5 per cent of the 20,217 registered having taken degrees in computer science disciplines.
Another study by the Higher Education Ministry in 2009, he said, showed that 22.8 per cent of computer science graduates in 2008, totalling 1,217, had failed to secure employment.
Setting up the Board of Computing Professionals, said Pua, would not help improve the quality of graduates.
“Instead, MOSTI (Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry) should perhaps work with the Higher Education Ministry to improve the rigour of our academic courses as well as tighten the criteria for entry into computer science-related courses,” he suggested.
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