Nearly all graduates will go through the job search phase to seek employment after finishing their studies. However, employment opportunities will decrease when the economic sector is affected by crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, that will lead to business shutdowns and employee layoffs.

Therefore, graduates nowadays need to possess soft skills as value-added skills that will help them to remain relevant and competitive in the real work world.

They also need to equip themselves with entrepreneurship skills, which is why entrepreneurship has recently been introduced at universities. The aim is to produce holistic graduates who have the option of being either job seekers or entrepreneurs, which will make them job creators that provide employment opportunities to other groups.

Various initiatives have been introduced to support the government’s aspiration of producing excellent graduates at par with those of other developed countries by 2030 and making Malaysia an entrepreneurial nation.

“UMT through its Career and Entrepreneurship Centre has been and will be implementing programmes to cultivate the entrepreneurship skills in graduates, and we have been actively marketing research-based products by UMT community through the establishment of a start-up company by the Innovation and Commercialisation Centre (ICC),” said Vice Chancellor Prof. Dato’ Dr. Mazlan Abd Ghaffar in his speech during the officiating ceremony of the programme called KPT Prihatin Keluarga Malaysia (KPKM) – Entrepreneurship Edition, organized by the Ministry of Higher Education in collaboration with the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives (KUSKOP) recently.

He said the event is part of the university’s initiatives to equip students with entrepreneurship knowledge and expose them to opportunities in the field.

“Today’s programme is meaningful as it represents a sincere effort from the two ministries to involve institutions of higher learning and agencies in disseminating plans and initiatives related to entrepreneurship to all levels of the society.”

He added that entrepreneurship is not something new among students and that they are advised to learn more about the field, which is part of the objectives in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education).

“Graduates are required to develop the ability to master the knowledge relating to their course of study as well as university core courses.

“We want to see holistic graduates who have the confidence to try new things, possess creative and critical thinking, have the willingness to challenge themselves in finding solutions, and display team spirit during discussions. UMT is moving towards this in our effort to improve the university’s excellence at the national and international levels,” he said.

As a university for society, UMT is committed to helping develop entrepreneurship skills among the communities especially in Terengganu. Various related projects have been implemented for the purpose.

Also present was Datuk Seri Dr. Noraini Ahmad, Minister of Higher Education, who officiated the programme at UMT’s Sultan Mizan Hall.

In her speech, she said the ministry supports all types of entrepreneurship programmes that are in line with the government’s aspirations.

“Indeed today’s programme is one of the ministry’s strategic efforts in collaboration with KUSKOP to ensure the sustainability of the entrepreneurship agenda at institutions of higher learning so that more entrepreneurs can emerge from among the graduates.

“In the context of entrepreneurship at higher education sector, I’d like to state that, in 2021, a total of 93,352 students ventured into entrepreneurship or other businesses during their study. The total increased 35 percent from the previous total in 2020, which was 68,937.

“The data showed that 9,131 or 9.78% of the students continued with their entrepreneurship activities after graduation, which means that the target of having 6% of students making entrepreneurship as their career was achieved.

“The Higher Education Institution (HEI) Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2021-2025 focuses on three core strategies, namely improving an entrepreneurship ecosystem that is synergistic and holistic, improving entrepreneurship network that is of high impact, and emphasizing entrepreneurship that is based on innovation and technology.”

One of the student entrepreneurs who became successful due to guidance by the university is Muhammad Nur Najmie Mohamad Naser, a Diploma of Fishery graduate who won a competition with his project NS Betta Lau, which was supervised by Dr. Ivan Koh Chong Chu from the Faculty of Fisheries and Food Science, and the Career and Entrepreneurship Centre. Today, the project has turned into a business with the products also sold overseas.

Another student, Mohd Maliki, who graduated with a Bachelor of Technology (Environment), had a deep interest in the field and ran a business selling ice cream branded as Hash Cream while as a student. Today he owns a business premise.

Several entrepreneurship projects have been carried out by UMT, and these include stingless bee farming, Setiu fisherman community enhancement, freshwater fish farming system, fertigation farming, and oyster mushroom farming.

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Corporate Communications Office
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu