There is a mismatch in demand and supply of jobs in the employment market.
Fiji Higher Education Commission (FHEC) director Dr Rohit Kishore made the comment in response to queries from Public Accounts Committee chair Alvick Maharaj regarding the saturation of graduates in certain fields and shortage of specialists in other sectors.
“Let’s say for example, in teaching there are tonnes of accounting and economics teachers available but institutes actually keep on taking these students and the burden goes on Government to provide them with employment,” Mr Maharaj said.
“There’s actually no place for them, there’s no placement whereby we can give them that employment.”
He said on the other hand, land surveyors and town and country planners were in demand yet students were not opting for such programs.
Dr Kishore acknowledged the issue and said they were working on it with the assistance of educational institutes and the National Employment Centre.
“We are working with Tertiary Scholarship and Loans Board on this and the Ministry of Economy so the funding model has been changed now,” he said.
“The cost work plan that the institutions provide to us for funding, we assess them and then recommend for funding through our ministry to the Ministry of Economy. This time around, what we asked them to do is provide a survey of their graduates, so they’ll do their own and we’ll do the national one to see how their graduates are doing.”
Dr Kishore said they had seen instances whereby a large number of graduates studied in one program, for example, about 500 students graduate in management.
“The destination survey will bring out where these students are going and what type of work they are doing, are they getting the type of work that they educated for or are they getting any job.
“There is a mismatch, on one hand there is a supply of too many graduates in one area and the other, we have shortage of required ones.”
He also highlighted the labour movement was quite high, not just in Fiji but globally.
“Each year if you look at form six and form seven, there are about 15,000-16,000 graduates each year. If we keep all of them here, we will be flooded. So we must get the institution and the system right and the type of courses we provide them.”
