KUALA LUMPUR: Varsity students and fresh graduates are confident that the 2021 Budget will help them land jobs.
Muhammad Imran Mohammad Mazlan, 23, lauded the incentives provided by the Perikatan Nasional government for fresh graduates to reskill and upskill themselves.
"The KPT-PACE programme will greatly benefit fresh graduates like me allowing us to learn new skills without worrying about our financial status.
"I graduated as a History major, but I plan to use this initiative to learn IT skills such as website designing and search engine optimisation (SEO).
"This will make me a more marketable employee, especially in an increasingly digitalised world," he said. Gan Jian Jie, 24, is confident that the KPT-PACE initiative can equip fresh graduates with technical competence.
"It will certainly encourage fresh graduates to sign up for certification programmes in a specific field of interest so that they stand a better chance of getting employed.
"The hiring incentives under PenjanaKerjaya will also be a catalyst for companies to hire fresh graduates.
"Since the government will provide hiring subsidies of up to 40 per cent, employers have more resources to provide technical training to their employees."
Wan Muhammad Arif Asyraf Wan Mohd Zahidi, 19, who is currently pursuing a diploma in microbiology in UiTM Kuala Pilah, welcomed the RM50 million allocation for public universities to upgrade their equipment and infrastructure.
"The money should be used to upgrade the old equipment in science labs at public universities. I also hope more electron microscopes and samples of microorganisms can be purchased for our faculty labs," he said.
For Tuan Amira Nadhirah Tuan Yunazri, 24, the budget's focus on upgrading the Malaysian Research and Education Network (MYREN) access line is timely as online learning has become a new norm in education.
"Upgrading the MYREN access line from only 500mbps now to 10Gbps will greatly help students have good access to their study materials and do research.
"Universities should take advantage of this allocation to improve the databases, websites, and online systems they provide for the students.
"An excellent Internet access can facilitate high-definition video streams for both students and lecturers, which will improve the quality of online distance learning," the University Malaya law student said.
Reports by Audrey Dermawan, Olivia Miwil, Rizalman Hammim, Sharifah Mahsinah Abdullah, Farah Solhi and Dhesegaan Bala Krishnan