The tracer study for graduates just published by the University of Malta has provided the usual spate of controversy. One could very well think that there are persons who described the glass as being half full and others who described it as being half empty. This somewhat hackneyed comment is based on what is probably the major finding of the survey, namely that 40 per cent of new graduates had found employment that did not specifically require their university qualification, although their university education is certainly an asset in their job. Is that 40 per cent figure a sign of success or a sign of failure?

Going beyond what may be or may not be sensational, I feel that there are a number of considerations that need to be made. If we were simply to reduce the issue of this trace study to the specific aspect as to whether graduates are finding jobs strictly related to their university studies, we would be missing the point.

Moreover, we would be doing an injustice to these graduates and the university and we would be rendering useless the investment that currently goes into university education thanks to the taxes that we pay. One real-life example says it all. If we expect university students to work in areas that specifically require their university qualification, how can we justify the architect who became a top notch IT consultant?

In effect, this is a critical point that needs to be made. A university education does not give you a passport to a job. It gives you knowledge and helps you to develop skills and attributes that should eventually serve you well to find a job that enables you to achieve your maximum potential.

So it is not wrong that the mathematics graduate ends up managing a travel organisation, or that a graduate in Italian ends up working in a senior public relations role. If anything, it proves the benefit (and may I say the beauty) of university education - it provides increased employability to people.

This is so much the case, that in their first year after graduating, most students are in full time employment. One must remember that this is happening in an economy that is supposed to be faltering (faltering economies cannot normally afford graduates) and after an uninterrupted period of around 18 years of a university population hovering around the 8,000 mark.

One should remember that not everyone believed that the Maltese economy could absorb all these graduates and, in effect, those who opposed the expansion of the university have been proved wrong. The supposed unemployed army of graduates remained nothing more than a false doomsday prediction.

There have been times and there will be times when the number of graduates that the Maltese economy can absorb in a particular area may be limited by circumstances. However, the outward-looking, flexible graduate should always be able to sort out such situations.

The long and the short of it is that, even though a university graduate may think that his job is not strictly related to his university qualification, his employer still thought him suitable enough to offer him a job. Better still, he thought him to be more suitable than other applicants.

No employer offers a job to a university graduate out of a sense of charity; he does it because it makes business sense. Thus the 40 per cent figure quoted in the recent tracer study reflects expectations that may not have been properly managed because of inappropriate career guidance. A tracer study of these same persons 10 years hence will provide totally different results.

Another important finding in the tracer study is that, in their first year after graduating, most students are earning the equivalent of the average national Maltese wage. Thus, the indication is that not only do we not have an army of unemployed graduates, but we also have an army of employed graduates that is managing to hold to its own ground, also in terms of remuneration. Admittedly, the situation is not the same for all graduates and for all areas.

Moreover, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that after a number of years, where new graduates were managing to earn higher than average salaries, the salaries which they are now earning at entry level are lower than those of say one or two years ago. This does not suggest that market conditions are putting down salaries. It rather suggests that employers recognise that a university graduate has value but should only earn a higher than average salary once that value has brought results.

It has become all too easy to switch on the red light on matters related to employment nowadays. In effect, the tracer study on graduates evidences an economy that is resilient to the threats it is facing, and a labour market that is buoyant and that has an absorptive capacity that has exceeded the expectations of many. May these many stand up and switch off the red light!