Surprised by the survey rate of graduates with jobs
Three years ago, Ms. Minh Phuong, 26 years old, received a link to a job survey one year after graduating from university through her class monitor.
After being reminded and urged 2-3 times, she quickly filled in her personal information and answered "for the sake of it" about 10 survey questions in the provided link.
"The whole class had about 60 people, but only 2/3 participated in the survey," said Ms. Phuong.
For this reason, at the present time, reading through a series of university admission projects, Ms. Phuong laughed when she saw that most majors have a graduate employment rate of over 90%.
"The employment rate of students may be based on the total number of students who responded, so the number is very high, up to over 90%. The data is not wrong, but it is difficult to evaluate comprehensively and makes those who are consulting feel suspicious," said Ms. Phuong.
Hoang Tuan Minh - a student of the 16th course, Information Technology major, FPT Polytechnic Tay Nguyen College - said that the rate of students having jobs announced by this school is quite high, over 95%.
"There are quite a lot of students who graduate without jobs or do jobs unrelated to their major, freelance work..." - Minh said.
The male student confided that although he studied a very "hot" major - information technology - when he was about to graduate, he did not know what job he would do.
"At that time, I planned to go into sales. I was not given any orientation or job introduction..." - Minh recounted and added that, in fact, the school introduced some jobs. However, most of those jobs were not related to the major, so students were not interested.
"Luckier than my friends, I am working in the right field at a hospital near my home. I proactively sought this job. Before that, I had the opportunity to intern here through an acquaintance's recommendation and was kept on to do it until now" - Minh said.
Meanwhile, Truong Manh Hoang - a student of the 19th class, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology - frankly shared that most of his friends have jobs, but about 70 - 80% work in the right field, the rest work in the wrong field.
"Even though they study chemical engineering, some students still switch to fields such as information technology, economics, microchips... Everyone has related knowledge so they are completely capable of working and this is also an increasing trend" - Hoang said.
However, I also frankly shared that student employment surveys within 12 months after graduation cannot be completely accurate. At the same time, the quality of student employment should also be considered.
"For example, students have jobs but work as factory workers, shippers, technology drivers... but are still considered 100% students with jobs" - she said.
Survey samples are not uniform.
According to the Ministry of Education and Training's guidelines, schools' recruitment plans must disclose the employment rate of graduates, but it does not specify what rate.
This leads to the fact that survey samples between schools are always inconsistent and inconsistent.
The 2022 Academy of Finance report shows that 4,267 students responded, accounting for about 97.11% of the total number of graduates.
Similarly, for students of the University of Commerce, the employment rate survey response link has 3,813 students responding to the survey out of a total of 5,049 students graduating in 2022 (accounting for about 75.54%).
Notably, at Foreign Trade University, the number of students graduating in 2022 is 3,657, but the number of students responding to the survey is only 1,649, accounting for only about 45.09% (less than half) of the total number of students graduating in 2022.
Or for the International Business major with a 100% employment rate after graduation, there are 285 students graduating in 2022 but only 148 students responded to the survey. Thus, the percentage of International Business students participating in the survey is only about 51.93% of the total number of graduates in this major.
"The employment rate of students may be based on the total number of students who responded, so the number is very high, up to over 90%. The data is not wrong, but it is difficult to evaluate and makes those who are consulting feel doubtful," said Ms. Minh Phuong.
Dr. Le Viet Khuyen, former Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education and Training, Vice President of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges, expressed concern and said that "beautifying" the employment rate data makes parents and students make wrong predictions about the labor demand in future industries and professions. This can lead to wrong orientation, causing waste of time and effort in studying.
According to Mr. Khuyen, this stems from the need for enrollment, because every school wants to recruit more students. Meanwhile, according to regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training, to increase the quota, schools must have a rate of graduates having jobs within 12 months of 80% or more.
Mr. Khuyen also said that the rate of students having jobs after graduation is very important, and is the basis for educational institutions to evaluate and improve training quality.
Therefore, the sampling for the survey must be extremely meticulous, from the connection, so that students see their responsibilities even after graduation, to building a reasonable questionnaire. This, in addition to one-sided announcement from the schools, requires supervision, comparison, and verification from the Ministry of Education and Training, and even society.
"The announcement of the rate of students with jobs is almost one-sided, without comparison. To do it effectively, the Ministry of Education and Training needs to have solutions to check the published data" - Mr. Khuyen suggested.
*Character names have been changed upon request
