UWI: Employment a major concern for students

With thousands of students entering the job market within a few days, UWI Guild of Students president Jonathan St Louis-Nahous said employment was a major concern for students.

The University of the West Indies yesterday said they would officially confer undergraduate and postgraduate degrees to more than 4,000 students over the next three days.

The UWI said graduation statistics for 2017 showed that of the 4,016 students to receive degrees, 67.5 per cent were female.

Undergraduate degrees will amount to 2,647 with the Faculties of Social Sciences and Medical Science certifying more than 500 undergraduate students each.

Six graduation ceremonies will take place from October 24 through October 26 at the UWI Sport and Physical Education Centre (SPEC).

UWI said from postgraduate programmes, 1,369 students were being awarded graduate degrees including 233 educators from the Faculty of Humanities and Education who represent the single largest graduate programme cohort for 2017.

Speaking to Newsday yesterday, Louis-Nahous said a lot of students in several different fields were complaining and were worried they might not find a suitable job after attaining their masters or degrees.

He said one of their major concerns was that after spending three years in education, they had to spend an additional year or two to look for jobs.

When contacted, Joycelyn Francois-Opadeyi, chief executive officer of the Employers’ Consultative Association (ECA) of TT, said the ECA would do their part in attempting to create a link between graduates and vacancies within its membership and graduates could contact the ECA to register their CV.

Francois-Opadeyi said the country’s main focus was on surviving the current harsh economic realities which had significantly affected the dynamics of the country’s labour market.

“This is certainly not confined to Trinidad and Tobago as countries around the world face similar challenges. For new graduates, this means that expectations need to be adjusted or reined in.

“While it may not be practical to immediately expect a managerial job, for example, the fact remains that opportunities do exist, as evidenced by the plethora of advertised vacancies both online and in conventional media.”

“From a human resource perspective, engaging in some type of work, be it permanent, temporary or as an internship, is much better than choosing to hold out for the dream job you desire.”

Francois-Opadeyi said the ECA also advised graduates to capitalise on the downtime between graduation and landing their first job because it could be used to gain additional certification or to diversify their skill-set, especially in soft skills.