I must say I fully support the views expressed by the writer of the letter Let undergraduates think for themselves .

The writer touched on the employability of local graduates and I am keen to explore this further as the number of jobless graduates is now hovering around 80,000.

I estimate that the amount of money spent on them so far exceeds RM400 million to date under the GTS (Graduate Training Scheme) run by the Ministry of Human Resources. Has anyone ever thought how this money is being spent?

Has a complete evaluation of this GTS project been done by a public authority or a private auditing firm? I am keen to know why the Microsoft six-month certificate course under GTS costs RM10,000 per graduate when in the open market we can enroll for such a programme for only RM2,500 per person.

And who actually own Alpine Computers that supplies the software and hardware for the GTS scheme?

Until today, I have yet to see a workable solution for the unemployed graduates issue being seriously implemented by the authorities. Why can't we have a simple 'graduate entrepreneurial programme' with less bureaucratic procedures for greater participation?

This would be better than having the current lot of proposals and programmes that are in reality just window dressings. For instance, why can't the authorities allow business management graduates to open up food stalls selling 'nasi lemak', 'goreng pisang', 'ondeh-ondeh', etc. under a programme called the 'Program Warong Graduan' (Graduates Food Stall Programme).

Under this project, these unemployed graduates could be given special licences and fast-tracked approvals from the local authorities. Let them learn the practical intricacies of basic business management from a scratch. Who knows, some of them may turn out to be successful entrepreneurs.

It is high time that the university authorities come down from their ivory tower and be responsible for the 'products' that they generate.