Graduates Can't Even Find Low-skilled Positions

Trans. by B.DULGUUN

Mongolia has 101 state and private universities in total, and an average of 30,000 students graduate annually. Yet, there aren't enough jobs for these new graduates.

There isn't any statistic on how many students graduated last academic year and how many of them got employed. However, the most recent statistic on this says that 37,243 students earned higher education diplomas and less than half of them, specifically 15,559 graduates, found jobs in 2014.

The government used to pay attention to graduates, estimate how many students need to be trained for specific fields, and provide jobs. Now, students that've finished general education schools are required to take the General Studies Admissions Exam and universities can enroll students depending on their scores.

The highest score General Studies Admission Exam takers can get is 800, and anyone who can earn 800 has the upper hand of enrolling to their desired university or college. But an interesting information was shared last year. According to various media outlets, a director of a prestigious state university noted that some of the students who achieved the highest score in the examination didn't meet requirements when tested again. This shows that students seeking higher education can't meet requirements, indicating poor education system of high schools.

On top of this, the majority of students choose their major according to advices from parents or choose a "cool" profession such as an economist and lawyer on a whim, because they still haven't figured out what they want to do in the future or recognized their own talents. In reality, these "cool" jobs have plenty of human resources and graduates are still unable to find jobs.

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Education sets specific limits for university courses based on school capacities, sufficiency of professors and labor market demands. Even so, there's no guarantee that everyone will get a job. Quite a number of youth believe that earning a diploma is reputation and not a source for furthering one's livelihood.

It's not a secret that the public believes that you must have higher education if one wants to be considered as a human. The general approach to study a profession, without researching if there are available jobs in the field or how much salary one can earn, contributes to the number of unemployed who have diplomas.

Over 900,000 people registered at the Youth Labor Exchange actively seeking jobs in...