Abstract
The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of Social Capital attributes on the employability readiness of the engineering graduates of the High Education Institutes in Oman. The study adopted a self-directed structured questionnaire was distributed to a sample of engineering students and graduates from a number of colleges and universities. The study used structural equation modelling (SEM) for analysed the collected data. The findings of the statistical analysis of the study showed the significant contribution of social activities in the attainment of teamwork, communication, proficiency of the English language, and problem-solving skills. As a result, the involvement of the graduates in social activities strongly influences the awareness of career information which in return affects positively graduates’ Readiness for Employability. Specifically, study findings showed Social capital attributes factor could have a high influence on the Readiness for Employability of the graduates in Oman when it is utilised effectively. Finally, the study’s implementations and recommendations could be transferred to the Gulf and Arab or other countries’ contexts having similar settings of HE systems and similar issues of skills gap and employability concern of their graduates.
Highlights
Oman labour market is considered as a continuously growing market since the starting of the renaissance era that took place in 1970
RECOMMENDATION This study provides a valuable recommendation for the technical departments of higher education institutions, course designers and policy makers to further increase the involvement and participation of the students in social activities as extracurricular activity due to their high positive effect on students' academic performance, interpersonal skills development, acquisition of employability skills and knowledge development
The results of this study addressed one of the main causes of the graduate engineer's skills gap from the higher education institutions in Oman by examining the impact of the independent variable of the social capital attributes factor on the graduate's readiness for employability, clearly indicating where the higher education institutions are located. that are strongly needed to develop and improve in order to close the skills gap of their graduates, improving their quality and their readiness for employability
Summary
Oman labour market is considered as a continuously growing market since the starting of the renaissance era that took place in 1970. As thousands of Omani students’ graduates annually, the industries have become the main work providers. They consider those graduates are not ready for employment (Al-Barwani, Chapman, & Ameen, 2009). Workplaces have continuously raised major doubts on the quality of the HE outcomes stressing that the HE system graduates lack the required sets of graduates’ readiness for employability skills (Matherly & Hodgson, 2014). To improve the Readiness for employability of the HE graduates, and since most studies refer to graduates’ attributes as the set of skills, knowledge, and competencies graduates are required to gain. The study analysed the human capital factors including skills, technical abilities and career proficiency; the social capital factors including network, community involvement and HEI classification; and the individual attributes including personality variables, adaptability and flexibility (Clarke, 2018)
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