If we go by tradition, then the universities should not be totally blamed if graduates are not gainfully employed. It's up to our graduates to adjust themselves in the society and seek jobs to sustain their career and livelihood. The word university itself comes from old French (1300-1400) 'universus' or universe, which means 'the whole'.

Society should be aware that the traditional role of a university is to expose students to knowledge in a wholesome manner. If universities are 'made up' to assure that their graduates are readily employed in the market, then they should redefine themselves to be known as 'training centres.'

A sizeable number of students, alternatively, get into professional programmes and graduate with professional degrees. Even this, in the long term, does not assure that they would be gainfully employed due to scarce opportunities and stiff competition in the job market.

Furthermore, the availability of white-collar jobs in the country does not always match the number of graduates churned out by the universities every year.

Those entering higher institutions should develop a certain level of maturity in thought. If they do, they presumably will have a level of high maturity upon graduation and consequently should be adept enough to diversify their talents.

In the developed countries, graduates are generally more 'realistic'. They are willing to do jobs that have nothing to do with what they had majored in when studying at the university. Being 'realists', undergraduates there do not hesitate to take up courses even in the arts because their intention is to fulfil what interest them most with the least worry over what job to do after they have graduate.

Upon graduation, they fittingly explore diversified fields taking up jobs that interest them even if they are quite irrelevant to their fields of major. When they are employed, employers readily get them trained to their needs.

Many have thus succeeded and are happy with what they do. The reason to this is that they consider going for higher education as a way to have a wholesome education - to expose themselves to independent and innovative thinking, entrepreneurship, human communication skills and to discover new avenues of thought and skills.

The developed countries have churned out millions of professionals and non-professionals and they do not complain much about unemployment. Therefore in reality, it is how we develop the mindset of our higher institution students that matters rather than stumbling through solutions on how to get them employed after they have graduated.

Besides the core areas of study, universities should incorporate in the study plans for all graduates from the arts and the sciences subjects that are related to personal well-being, independent and innovative thinking and skills in entrepreneurship and human communications to prepare them for real life.

This would, expectantly, help change the mindsets of our graduates. And upon accepting these 'wholesome' graduates who prefer to be employed, local employers should also play an equally important role in training them to conform to their specific needs.