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Crappy degrees, low pay and youth unemployment

 
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romanworld



Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 388

PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:51 pm    Post subject: Crappy degrees, low pay and youth unemployment Reply with quote

In Taiwan, the government's controversial education reforms, launched in the mid-1990s in a bid to popularise tertiary education, have led to a boom in the number of universities and, in turn, an excess supply of university graduates and a higher unemployment rate among them.

With more than 150 universities, Taiwan has a university entrance rate of almost 100 per cent; many students also take postgraduate programmes. This raises questions about the quality of the programmes as well.

At the same time, the economy has been struggling. Much of Taiwan's manufacturing sector has moved to China as manufacturing costs are lower there, resulting in a loss of jobs. Taiwan has a youth unemployment rate of about 12 per cent.

With too many graduates seeking graduate-level jobs in an environment that is increasingly losing its competitive edge, many degree holders have no choice but to take up jobs with salaries far lower than their expectations.

Fresh graduates in Taiwan earn a starting pay of $900 to $1,000, which is about three times less than what a fresh degree holder here(Singapore) would earn.

Human resource expert David Leong of PeopleWorldwide Consulting said: "When you have a degree, you expect to earn a certain level of pay.

"But there are so many graduates in Taiwan that there are not enough jobs for them and they settle for low pay."


http://news.asiaone.com/news/education/university-degrees-mindset-shift-needed


Last edited by romanworld on Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:03 am; edited 1 time in total
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thechangling



Joined: 11 Apr 2013
Posts: 276

PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 3:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sounds just like every western country nowadays. Neo-liberalism has a lot to answer for.
3D printers are going to kill import/export hopefully and ordinary people could enjoy another round of Keynesian styled economic redistribution policies in their home countries again.
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romanworld



Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 388

PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

But the Taiwan experience is unique as the article hints:

Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin warned last year that a graduate glut could see Singapore workers being overeducated and underemployed - a trend already unfolding in South Korea and Taiwan.

Of course Taiwan is just ahead of a trend that is starting to happen worldwide:

But with economists warning of a graduate glut and an increasingly complicated knowledge economy, there is a need to rethink the mentality that a degree is the be all and end all.

The simple fact is that the boom in colleges and universities in Taiwan back in the 90's has led to the situation we face today: Too many schools vs too few students.(This latter situation has been exacerbated by the fact that Taiwan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.) The MOE in all its wisdom has tried different solutions such as opening their market to Chinese students but that failed miserably. Later they tried pitching their schools to older learners, but that also failed. The truth is that Taiwan is fast running out of options. Luckily China is a close neighbour so it absorbs some of the newly qualified graduates that are being spewed out of the 150 factory-like universities that dot the country. Despite this however the article says that many graduates are taking jobs that are "low-paid" which may go some way to explaining why so many young people remain at home with their parents.

The upshot of all this of course is that the MOE will be forced to close down some schools that can't recruit enough students. Already this is happening. Over the next decade the MOE plans to close down a third of its universities, most being the private for-profit variety. This is undoubtedly a good thing because most of these universities are substandard and need to go the way of the dinosaur, but it does beggar the question of what all these unemployed teachers and administrators will do when they are retired. Perhaps they'll bop over to China too?

http://news.asiaone.com/news/education/university-degrees-mindset-shift-needed
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