INTRODUCTION
There are several opinion says that university students should not be given courses on study skills in their study programme, as they are expected to have acquired these competencies from their earlier education.

From my point of view, I agreed with the above topic. The reason I agreed it is because we should not waste our valuable time in university to been taught on study skills. As one of the out campus student, time is very valuable to us. We have to secrete our time between study, work and family. Basically all the study skills such as time management, note taking, SQ3R and so on should be taught in our early education. (primary or secondary).

What are the study skills?
The term study skills is often used interchangeable with many other term which all describe the same thing – a person’s ability to study effectively, and their ability to acquire knowledge

As I mention earlier, the study skills can be categorized as follows:
Time management – as a university student, we need to organize our work for ourselves. The number of simultaneous demands being made upon us by different tutors and different courses can be quite daunting at first.

Note taking - Everyone takes notes for different purposes at different times. Note-taking can serve a variety of functions depending upon both the context in which they are taken. For an example, kindly see appendix 1 (Cornell note taking)

SQ3R – Is on of the reading technic that a student can implent in their study skills. Based on Derek Rowntree in his book Learn How to Study Labels, SQ3R which stand for:
Survey – examine the whole before you read the parts, survey the book first, then the chapter then the paragraph. Also look at the title, headings and subheadings, caption under pictures, charts and any summaries.
Question – ask yourself why you are reading this. What do you already know? What do You want to know?
Read – skeam read at the first reading, looking for the main ideas and general stucture of the text. Only then read for the purpose of making notes on the key points. Look for an answer to the questions you first raised.
Recall – can I recall the key points without re-reading the text? Recall helps you to concentrate, and to make your reading active rather than passive. Orally ask yourself questions about what you have just read and summarize in your own words.
Review – look back at the text to check your recall. Have you missed anything of Importance?

In the 21st century the most significant challenges for graduates will be to manage their relationships with work and with the learning. This requires skills such as negotiating, action planning and networking, added to qualities of self-awareness and confidence. Besides that there are few others skills that most of the employment required such as, communication and presentation, planning and problem solving. These are the skills required to be ‘self-reliant’ in career and personal development. They are as valuable in education as in the workplace, and as valuable to organizations as they are to individuals.

Based on a report in Malaysia Today entitled ‘Malaysia Has 60 000 Graduates Unemployed’ (2005), the government has conducted a survey and found that around
60,000 Malaysian graduates are unemployed due to lack of certain skills such as communication skills, poor command of English and lack of working experience. Further, it has been reported by the Deputy Minister of Human Resources that a large number of graduates are still jobless.

From the report, it was found that 70% of graduates from public universities, 26% from the private higher learning institutions and 34% of those graduated from foreign universities are still jobless (Suresh, 2006).

This phenomenon is alarming as this indicate that the graduates are not qualified to be employed. Many put the blame on the educational systems in the higher learning institutions that ignored the importance of emphasizing of soft skills such as I mentioned before.

Generally, Malaysia has sufficient supply of labor and the number of graduates produced every year is high. Why these phenomenons happen? The major complaints raised by the employers are not the lack of technical skills of the job candidates, rather their lack of skills in other aspects such as negotiating, action planning and network, communication and self-confidence.

Employers are becoming more selective nowadays as the business environment is becoming more challenging. In order to be competitive, they have to depend much on their human assets. English proficiency is a must as more business dealings and transactions are conducted in English. The problem is many Malaysian graduates have a poor command of English.

The HR minister, Datuk Dr. Fong Chan Onn in a newspaper article entitled “30000 Grads in Unsuitable Jobs” (2005), quoted a study conducted by Economic Planning Unit that thirty thousand Malaysian graduates only manage to get casual and temporary work such as cashiers and restaurant workers because of poor English proficiency. These graduates are highly qualified in their areas of specialization but due to poor communication skills, their technical skills remain unused. Most of the employers are more willing to hire people with ready skills as they can save cost on training and development.

Based on past studies, (such as Harvey and Bowes, 1998; Ungku Harun Al-Rashid, 2004; Chang, 2004; Azizah, 2004), a number of employability skills were selected for the study. The employability are as listed in figure 1.

Business student in their final year at UNITAR had conducted a study on employability. The survey conducted seeks to examine the level of perceived employability among the students. 151 students participated in this study, representing various areas of courses / programme. The summary of the employability skills as per figure 2.

Based on the summary report of the employability skills, a positive result received from the level of communication skills. The high perceived rating for the four items (refer to figure 2) supports the findings in a study conducted by Multimedia Development Corporation (ungku Harun Al-Rasyid, 2004) that states Malaysian graduates have good learning ability.

In terms of English proficiency, majority of the students reported that they still prefer to use their mother tongue for informal conversation with peers and relatives. However, they indicated that for formal transactions and dealings, they would use English language.

In one article entitled “Report: Education Mind Your Language” from Asiaweek (1999) saying that English is turning from a mere useful skill into a prerequisite for access to the best job and high income. The statement also has been justified by Jobstreet’s report (Chang, 2004), which says that proficiency in English language is a requirement for graduates’ marketability.

Conclusion
From my opinion, the education syllabus in Malaysia should be more interactive and challenging. In order for us to go into globalization era, we should be prepared ourselves with all the skills.

The Ministry of Education should emphasize the basic study skills such as time management, SQ3R, note taking and others should be taught during our primary and secondary level. This is due to, in Malaysia, we have to seat for a several examination such as UPSR,PMR, SPM and STPM. During this period, time management and note taking is very important to a student to become successful in their examination.
Study skills should be taught to students when they are young. However, the schools teachers should be provided to teach students the study skills. For this reason, there should be some adjustments about teaching these study skills at those colleges that prepare teachers / tutor to help students in this issue.
First of all, the study skills should be given at the colleges or ‘Maktab Perguruan’ that prepare teachers for primary and secondary school. In this way, those college students (future teacher or tutor) who will be teachers or counselors in the future can help their students with their study skills.

This course should be structured in such a way that it should be useful to students. The instructors of this course should be prepared such a way that s/he can help those students who do not want to learn new study skills. Instead of giving students theoretical knowledge, they should have opportunities to practice these study skills. Students should be presented examples from real life and findings obtained by researches.
This class can be useful only if instructors are more active and dedicated to teach study skills and have their students believe in the benefits of learning these study skills and habits
All the skills is not just for an individual but it is also involved the community and nation. Most of the people say, TIME is PRECIOUS or TIME is life. So don’t waste our valuable time in university to be taught on the study skills where we, at first should prepared ourselves with all the relevant study skills before we enrolled in the university.

References:

“Special Report: Education Mind Your Language”, Asiaweek, July 30, 1999

Suresh, R. (2006) : “70% of Grads from Public Institutions Jobless”,

Ungku Harun Al-Rashid, A. (2004) “Meeting the Demands of Global Firms: Survey Findings”. Presented in a workshop “workshop on Enhancing Graduate Employability in Globalised Economy” conducted by Economic Planning Unit, Malaysia, 2004

“Malaysia has 60 000 Graduates Unemployed”, Malaysia Today, November 3, 2005.
Available at: http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-e/2005/11/malaysia-has-60000-undergraduate.htm

Azizah, T. (2004) “Facing the Realities of the World of work” Presented in a workshop “Workshop on Enhancing Graduate Employability in a Globalised Economy, conducted by Economic Planning Unit, Malaysia, 2004.

Chang, M. (2004) ‘Some Graduates Are More Marketable Than Others – Employer’s Perspective’ Presented in a workshop “Workshop on Enhancing Graduate Employability in a Globalised Economy, conducted by Economic Planning Unit, Malaysia, 2004.

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………1

What is a study skill? ………………………………………………………………..1

List of study skills ……………………………………………………………………1- 2

Body of Content
Report in Malaysia Today …………………………………………………………. 3

Article on 30000 Grads in Unsuitable Jobs ………………………………………. 4

Case study – UNITAR ………………………………………………………………. 5

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………. 6 - 7

References ……………………………………………………………………………. 8

Figure
Figure 1: Employability Skills ………………………………………………………..9
Figure 2: Percentage on employability skills – UNITAR …………………………. 9