Employment Opportunities For Graduates Research Articles

University degree benefits and labour market experiences of non-traditional graduates in Uganda

Studies on the transition from university to the workforce have revealed that non-traditional students (NTS) often face more challenges, including discrimination and a higher likelihood of securing lower-quality jobs compared to traditional students. Despite these findings, there is a scarcity of studies examining the specific benefits NTS derive from obtaining a university degree and their labour market experiences including their future career plans. Moreover, many studies do not deeply explore these issues from the perspectives of disadvantaged graduate groups. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of capital and current discourses on graduate employment opportunities, this paper uses the perspectives of non-traditional graduates (NTG) to discuss the benefits of obtaining a university degree, their labour market experiences, and their future career plans within the context of Uganda. The benefits were found to be social, economic, personal, and professional, with notable overlap between social and personal benefits, revealing tensions between individualism and collectivism in Ugandan society. Various factors were found to positively and negatively shape NTG’s labour market experiences, with further training and self-employment being key aspects of their future career plans. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for understanding the intersection of education, labour market dynamics, and societal values.

Sustainable assistive technology and employment opportunities for graduates with disability: Mediating role of government support

Sustainable assistive technology and employment opportunities for graduates with disability: Mediating role of government support

Enhancing employability through university-industry linkages: Omani engineering students’ perspectives of the Eidaad internship programme

Like many Middle East and North Africa countries, one of the main socio-economic challenges facing Oman is the creation of meaningful graduate employment opportunities. A combination of factors that include the gap between the expertise and skills acquired in higher education and workforce requirements means many students struggle to find suitable jobs upon graduation. Consequently, providing quality education and developing national talents are key objectives of the country’s Vision 2040 development roadmap. Higher levels of cooperation between tertiary institutions and industry within the framework of government policy are necessary to achieve these outcomes. This study explores undergraduate engineering student perceptions of one example of this collaboration – the Eidaad internship programme. To better understand interns’ perceptions of the programme’s personal and professional benefit across targeted areas and means for further improvement, a three-part on-line questionnaire was administered to current and former programme participants. Results indicate overwhelmingly positive perceptions of the programme, including in terms of enhancing interns’ teamwork skills, workplace participation, communication skills, clarity of career plans and objectives, and so on. Participant suggestions for improvement include the creation of concrete employment pathways and the provision of further on-the-job training opportunities. Implications for the Eidaad and similar internship programmes are discussed.

Designing a Community Health Worker (CHW) Certificate Training that Centers Marginalized Youth’s Health and Wellness

The genesis of the youth Community Health Worker (CHW) and Citizen/Community Science (CS) training is rooted in interdisciplinary research and the lived experiences of families in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Mendenhall and colleagues’ (Drs. Robinson, Roberts and Rodriquez-Zas) South Chicago’s Black Mothers’ Resiliency Project provide dinsights into Black women’s experiences with genomics, trauma, and community science. Black women’s testimonies highlighted the health impacts of living in neighborhoods with high levels of gun violence and the resilience strategies they employ. This led to the development of a youth-centered CHW and CS training program, aimed at addressing health disparities. The program trained high school students and young adults (up to age 24) as CHWs and CSs, focusing on the objectives of (1) embedding culturally competent health workers in marginalized communities; (2) amplifying community voices; (3) collecting, analyzing, and quantifying observational data to inform policy decision-making; (4) amplifying community voices in healthcare discussions and (5) creating community health care worker training certification for youth. Over three years, the program trained over 50 participants, incorporating elements of wellness, art, and entrepreneurship.Based on ethnographic notes participants reported increases in wellness such as reduced anxiety and increased empowerment. The program’s long-term goals include creating employment opportunities for graduates and contributing to improved community health outcomes. This initiative represents a step towards addressing racial trauma and promoting community healing through youth-led innovation and empowerment.

ANALYSIS OF DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN EXPERIENCE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF FUTURE PHYSICAL SPECIALISTS CULTURE AND SPORTS IN PROFESSIONAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The article provides a comparative analysis of professional training of sports personnel, organizational conditions of their training and employment opportunities of graduates of sports educational institutions of Ukraine and Slovakia. It is revealed that the concept of «profession» is a type of occupation, work activity that requires a certain training; the main means of subsistence. Accordingly, vocational education provides a certain qualification, knowledge in a certain field of science and allows to work in a profession. It has been established that in Ukraine the training of junior bachelors of physical education and sports can be carried out on the basis of basic secondary education.Students are obliged to complete the educational program of specialized secondary education, corresponding to the field of knowledge and specialty, which is integrated with the educational and professional program of profile junior bachelor. In the professional training of Slovak institutions sports specializations are presented, which allow students to improve their motor and physical abilities, continue to build a sports career. Differences manifest themselves in the more professional orientation of educational programs of Ukrainian educational institutions, which allows graduates to obtain a diploma of thestate standard and to carry out full-fledged professional activity in positions: coach (by sport), instructor-methodologist in physical culture and health and sports and mass work, instructor in therapeutic physical culture, etc. The aim of the training in Slovak educational institutions is to improve physical and intellectual development and improve sports performance. The aim of the training is to improve the physical and intellectual development of the pupils; and to meet the requirements of secondary education; students complete secondary school and at the same time receive training to continue their studies in specialized higher education institutions. Only the most highly deserving representatives of the sports environment can qualify coach of the II category. We consider Ukrainian educational-professional programs more perspective and productive in training specialists of physical culture and sports.

The university training of the sports manager in Italy between legislative misapplications and overlapping degree courses

PurposeThe implementation of the 2021 sports reform in Italy introduced new professional figures, including the sports manager, defined by Legislative Decree no. 36/2021. According to this law, a master's degree in Organization and Management of Services for Exercise and Sport Sciences (LM-47) is required to practice as a sports manager. However, some universities offer bachelor's and master's degree courses in sports management under different study classes, such as Sciences of Legal Services (L-14), Administration and Organization Sciences (L-16), Business and Management Sciences (L-18), and Business Economics (LM-77). These degree courses may qualify individuals as pseudo-sports managers, despite substantial differences in the educational content compared to the legally defined sports manager profile. This study aimed to assess the illegitimate overlap of degree courses outside the class LM-47 and the discrepancies in their study plans compared to those of LM-47, which is the only one corresponding to the sports manager profile.MethodsThis documentary investigation used the two Ministerial Decrees of 2007 of the bachelor’s and master’s degree classes to extrapolate the degree courses involved in the overlap. Universitaly portal was used to identify the relevant subjects included in the individual degree courses in sports management other than the LM-47. The textual analysis of the objectives and content of the degree courses was done through the literature review tool Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), highlighting the relevant or consistent elements of the profile of the sports manager as established by law.ResultsDegree courses in Law and Sports Management in class L-14 have a juridical professional profile, which is minimally relevant to the sports manager's role. Similarly, degree courses in Economics and Business Management Sciences in the class L-18 and Administration and Organization Sciences in the class L-16 focus on economic–financial administration and management control, lacking alignment with the sports manager profile. Even master's degree courses in the class LM-77 exhibit disparities with the sports manager profile as defined by the law. Furthermore, all these degree courses lack European credit transfer system (ECTS) credits in the exercise and sport sciences area, an essential aspect of the sports manager profession.ConclusionThere are evident contradictions in the degree courses designed for sports managers other than LM-47. According to the law, a master’s degree in study class LM-47 is required to pursue this profession, but there are several degree programs from different classes of study (juridical and economic) available in the national educational offering. This situation may lead to the misapplication of Legislative Decree no. 36/2021 and result in problems with professional accreditation and limited employment opportunities for graduates of such courses. To promote the development of this professional figure, it is necessary to improve the educational offerings in the LM-47 with a more integrated approach to various economic and juridical knowledge to meet the educational needs of future sports managers who navigate the real dynamics of the sports industry.

Factors Affecting Employability of Women Graduates in Engineering and Technology Education: Evidence from Ethiopia

Employment opportunities for graduates are an important issue. This study has two objectives: analyzing female graduates’ employment participation and investigating the factors affecting women graduates’ employability in engineering and technology education in Ethiopia. Secondary data have been analyzed to establish women graduates’ involvement in STEM employment using graduation and employment data. Primary data were collected from 384 women graduates of engineering and technology education. The Probit model results reveal that the unemployment of engineering and technology graduated women are negatively influenced by communication skills, Academic performance (cumulative GPA), willingness to migrate from one place to another for searching jobs, and non-technical skills. While job preference and marriage impact women’s unemployment positively. Hence, graduated women themselves, the government, and other stakeholders should enhance women graduates’ employment opportunities. Such as graduates must improve their communication skills and non-technical skills, record better grade points, and be ready to go everywhere to find jobs. They must also be prepared to do available work, become an entrepreneur, and decide for late marriage until they have a job. The government must create a channel between universities and firms through teaching with a work placement curriculum, more concern on practical works, approve the peace and security of citizens, and expand infrastructure.

Coexistence and creativity: screen media education in the age of artificial intelligence content generators

ABSTRACT This article discusses the implications of Artificial Intelligence Content Generators (Gen-AI) for the field of screen media education. In light of the 2022–2023 releases of ChatGPT, DALL·E 2 and Midjourney AI, the article addresses the idea of what value there is for a student to enrol in a creative arts degree given the public view that Gen-AI threaten to replace human jobs in artistic fields. The article argues that there is potential for Gen-AI to offer major benefits to existing approaches to media education and that the technology could in fact drive greater interest in studying the creative arts. The act of creativity is valued by those who practise it for intrinsic purposes, and many graduates of screen programmes have traditionally leveraged their passion and creative conceptual understandings in a wide variety of employment fields outside vocationally-oriented screen production roles. Therefore, the article demonstrates that Gen-AI can benefit screen media programmes by improving employment opportunities for graduates, enhancing access and diversity for under-represented students, and can address the classic challenges of the theory-practice nexus for media production students.

Strategies for effective development of vocational college admissions publicity

With the continuous reform and improvement of China's education system, vocational colleges have become an indispensable part of China's economic construction, and the employment opportunities of graduates have also increased. However, under the new situation, due to various reasons, the recruitment of vocational colleges is facing great difficulties, and in order to break this barrier, it is necessary to reform the enrollment rate of vocational colleges. Therefore, this paper studies the recruitment publicity of vocational colleges and puts forward some effective strategies to help relevant institutions.

The impact of monitoring and evaluation of Tertiary Education Trust Fund in human capial development among Nigerian universities

This study abstract was designed to examine the concept of monitoring and evaluation of tertiary education trust fund (TETFUND) in human capital development among Nigerian universities, the under-funding process of universities, poor academic staff training and development which are said to be the major causes of brain drain within the university community. The study also examined the major effects of poor human capital development, ineffective stimulus grant intervention by government at both federal and state levels as well as counterpart funding of Nigerian public universities.The study adopted the qualitative approach and the qualitative approach designed to evaluate and review past work done by previous researchers and as well facts and results from different sources. The population of Nigerian tertiary institutions stands at 226 federal, polytechnics and colleges, but the study specifically studied 91 public universities in the country. The method of data collection is the review of past analysis, participant observation and statistical and data results. The findings of the study noted that due to the huge population of Nigeria, the current 6% educational budget for the country is too low, with a population of two hundred million, the educational budget should commiserate with the size of the gross domestic product (GDP). The study also indicates that human capital development, monitoring and evaluation in the university system is lacking compared to what is obtainable in the budgetary allocation of the educational sector of other countries and these has led to the major issues and causes of brain and drain. Monitoring and Evaluation in human capital development are said to be interrelated most especially in terms of research, human resource management and man powerdevelopment of skill and unskilled employees. the study recommends that effectiveness of more research grants and funding for universities, extensive program for manning research, drastic reforms in the education sector to meet the 21st public policies and create employment opportunities for graduates, conducive environment by government, which will create investment in the education sector.The study recommended that much emphasis should be laid on public universities in Nigeria, therefore there is a need public college of education and polytechnics to be considered in future research. Furthmore, this study, being a qualitative study, it is pertinent for a quantitative approach to be adopted in future study and reference.

Research on The Effectiveness of The Bandar Baharu Community College Light Vehicle Service Program on The Automotive Industry

The Transformation of Technical and Vocational Education aims to produce TVET graduates with optimal technical and technological skills. This research paper was produced to identify the effectiveness of the Bandar Baharu Community College Light Vehicle Service program on the automotive industry, after 15 years of being offered educational service. To ensure that the programs being offered remain relevant to the country's employment needs in the automotive industry, this study is required and implemented by examining aspects of the content and suitability of the program with the needs of automotive organizations, employment opportunities for graduates, graduates' development opportunities and collaboration and industry cooperation with Bandar Baharu Community College. A total of 88 automotive operators answered the survey questionnaire and all of them were selected as survey respondents. A research study was also conducted to measure the reliability of the study instrument using Cronbach's Alpha. The overall value of the research study was 0.993. The data of this study were processed and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Science SPSS version 22 to obtain the mean value, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage. Overall, the findings of the study show that the level of effectiveness of the Bandar Baharu Community College Light Vehicle Service program in the automotive industry is at a high and commendable level with an overall mean value of 4.18 (SD = 0.415). The results of this study have also received the latest market feedback from the automotive industry which covers four aspects evaluated. The result of the study showed that the industry gave feedback that the content of the Bandar Baharu Community College Light Vehicle Service program is by the needs of organizations in the automotive industry. The results also show that career opportunities are very wide and open for graduates to work in organizations in the automotive industry around the states of Kedah, Perak, and Penang.The findings of this study are expected to help the management of Bandar Baharu Community College, Polytechnic Education Department, and Community College in planning and implementing the Light Vehicle Service program.

Graduates’ Employability Index of Generic and Innovative Skills: A Survey of Employers in Ogun State, Nigeria

This paper assesses employers’ perception on generic and innovative skills as indicators of graduates’ employability. A cross-sectional survey of employers, managers, human capital practitioners and consultants was conducted across different types of work organisations in Ogun State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling involving stratification and random selection was used such that 60 participants were taken from each of private and public sectors and randomly selected to make a total of 120 participants reached in the study. A 20-item questionnaire with a four-point likert rating scale was developed and administered to the subjects. Data collected were analysed with multiple regression analysis. The results reveal high employers’ demand for generic skills and remarkable innovative skill on the part of graduates as such skills represent core work-demand competence and attributes that could enhance employment opportunities of graduates in a work organisation and foster the fulfilment of employers’ needs from employed graduates. Hence, graduates’ employability is regarded as a function of the ability to demonstrate mastery or competence in array of generic and innovative skills. The study calls for a redirection in higher education towards generic and innovative skills development and mastery, personal development efforts by graduates and collaboration among schools, government agencies and industries towards producing competent manpower for industrial need.

Labor Organizer Nannie Helen Burroughs and Her National Training School for Women and Girls

Labor Organizer Nannie Helen Burroughs and Her National Training School for Women and Girls

5 - Skills or Credentials? Comparing the Perspectives of Degree- and Non-degree-holding Ghanaian Graduates on the Value of Higher Education

The massification of higher education, fuelled in part by demand from young people and their families, has coincided with more competition in the graduate labour market. This article seeks insight into the interpretative framework through which graduates view the relationship between higher education and the labour market. Specifically, given evidence of diminishing employment opportunities for graduates, the study examines the relative strengths of human capital theory and credentialism in explaining the value that young people continue to place on higher education. Using survey data from a sample of 2,036 Ghanaian higher education graduates, the article investigates the relative value students accord to skills and credentials through analysis of two self-report measures: satisfaction with their higher education experience, and, second, labour market expectations in respect of employment and income. Overall, non-degree holders self-assessed as having more skills training. Nonetheless, degree-holders generally were more satisfied with their educational achievements and had higher labour market expectations than those without degrees. These findings imply that young people value higher education less in terms of the skills they acquire and more in regards to the face-value of the qualifications they obtain, indicating a credentialist perspective that is in marked contrast to the human capital approach which undergirds policymaking on higher education in Ghana and much of the African continent.

Designing Organizations for Collaborative Relationships: the Amenability of Social Capital to Inter-Agency Collaboration in the Graduate Employment Context in Uganda

This paper discusses organizational social capital with the view that its amenability to collaboration creates trust, mutuality and reciprocal relational values upon which organizations may synchronize their efforts to create graduate employment opportunities. We adopted a cross-sectional survey design with both quantitative and qualitative approaches. We conveniently collected data from staff and leaders of four organizations which were purposely selected to represent a cross-section of government, private and civil society organizations whose mandate touches on the employability of university graduates in the country in very direct ways. From a sample of 175 respondents, we received 105 filled questionnaires, representing a response rate of 62%. We observed that the extent to which the social capital components of trust, mutuality and reciprocal relations were amenable to interagency collaboration were low to sufficiently permit collaborative relationships upon which synergy between agencies would enhance the creation of graduate employment opportunities. The implication of this study is that we have been trained to foster self-sufficiency, individual competence, individual brilliance and independence through the pursuance of individual goals and actions. This greatly affects the trust, mutuality and reciprocal relationships that people/organizations develop with one another, consequently denying societies or organizations the opportunity to tap into the synergistic capital that would help people or organizations tackle the challenges that are beyond their individual capabilities.

Digital transformation in the regions of Russia: estimates and reality

The article presents the problem of a comprehensive analysis of the socio-cultural prerequisites that determine the successful or unsuccessful implementation of the program of digitalization of the regions of Russia. A detailed examination of the tools for assessing the level of digitalization on the example of the methods for calculating the Skolkovo “Digital Russia” index and the regional digitalization index by I. V. Groshev and A. A. Krasnoslobodtsev showed their low informative value for understanding the factors leading to the formation of digital inequality in regions. The actuality of the problem is due not only to the need for an adequate assessment of the tools offered as convenient for comparing regions, but also by the following facts. On the one hand, the tasks of digitalization of education are of paramount importance in the framework of the federal development program. On the other hand, their implementation depends both on the local state of educational institutions and on solving a wider range of issues: staff training, providing employment opportunities for graduates, forming the need for highly qualified personnel in the region, etc. The novelty of the work is that the author consider the problem of studying the digital inequality of the regions of Russia with an emphasis on the issue of digitalization of education in the context of the existing regional socio-cultural prerequisites that determine the successful implementation of programs or prevent it. The application of institutional and functional approaches is of particular research interest, these approaches allow us to study the existing socio-cultural prerequisites in the regions as factors of stratification of Russian society that strengthen or weaken social inequality in the context of the development of a digital society. The author concludes that the solution of the problem of a comprehensive assessment of the socio-cultural prerequisites of the regional level of digitalization requires a detailed multi-factor analysis on a specific problem and direction of digitalization. The comparison of such data requires separate consideration of the indicators of socio-economic, demographic, and institutional development of the regions.

THE MECHANISM OF PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE COMPETENCE MODEL OF A UNIVERSITY GRADUATE BASED ON DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

Today, the issues of mastering the current training program at the university are of concern to school graduates, applicants and students of the universities. Often, the question of choosing a promising profession arises even at school – after all, which exams the student will have to prepare for depends on it. At the same time, often, the choice of a future profession is made more and more intuitively, on the recommendation of close relative; employers and universities are very little involved in this process today. In addition, the employer does not have any significant tools to influence the formation of the competencies of a future university graduate, only indirectly influencing the training process. The article analyzes the shortcomings of the existing interaction between students, employers and the university. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the formation of a mechanism for the practical application of the competence model of training students based on the use of the capabilities of modern digital technologies, which is supposed to be implemented by developing and creating a digital platform for the employment of graduates, providing training of specialists on request of specific organizations. This will make it possible to satisfy the organization's demand for highly qualified personnel with targeted practice-oriented training, influence the formation of the required competencies "on request", as well as more effectively provide employment opportunities for graduates. Despite the significant experience of interaction between employers and job seekers on various electronic resources, modern platforms do not presuppose the influence of the employers on the competence of the student, and force them to deal with the finished product of training - a graduate, spending time and other resources on his targeted training at the workplace. The proposed digital platform is designed to solve this problem.

Widening graduate employment opportunities for students on Education Studies degrees: a case study at a School of Education in one London university

The purpose of this small-scale study was to explore the aspirations of a final year cohort of students on an Education Studies degree programme at one School of Education, within a London university, with the intention of widening graduate employment opportunities. The Education Studies degree attracts candidates who are almost always aspiring for a career in the teaching profession, and in particular, the primary sector. The responses collected via a survey revealed that thirty per cent of respondents were going to take up jobs in non-graduate employment, a job that they could have secured without a degree. The School of Education, in a bid to increase graduate employment opportunities, widened the choice of career routes into teaching by providing two additional teacher training courses for the post compulsory sector. This is the first phase of the research. The following phase, planned for next year, will track the students into their teaching roles in order to evaluate the popularity and success of these graduate courses.

Career Destiny of Healthcare Management Field from the Perspective of Yazd Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences Graduates

Background: Identifying the current employment status provides useful information for policy makers and decision makers of the country's education system in order to future planning for determining the admission capacity of students and the conditions of graduate’s recruitment and employment condition of various fields. The aim of this study was determining the career destiny of healthcare management from the perspective of graduates. Methods: This descriptive-analytic and cross-sectional study was conducted in the second half of 2018 on 108 graduates of healthcare management at Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd. Participants entered the study by census method and the data collection tool was standard career destiny questionnaire. Statistical analyzes were performed in SPSS 16 using descriptive (Frequency, Mean, Standard deviation, Percentage) and analytical (independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient test) statistics. Results: The mean score of career destiny in the present study was 3.04 ± 0.65 that among its dimensions, the highest and the lowest average score was related to the specialized and professional abilities dimension (3.69 ± 0.65 (and creating the necessary facilities for employment by the university dimension (2.59 ± 0.63), respectively. Also, there was a statistically significant relationship between the dimension of specialized and professional abilities with the variable of marital status (P = 0.046), the dimensions of creating the necessary facilities for employment by the university (P = 0.031), the appropriateness of the curriculum and professors education with employment (P = 0.047) and the role of university environment and entrepreneurship skills (P = 0.034) with the variable of age and finally the appropriateness of the curriculum and professors education with employment with the variable of grade point average (GPA) (P = 0.029) of participants. Conclusion: It is suggested to provide employment opportunities for graduates in the field of healthcare management at different levels of the health system, educational objectives, curriculum content and clerkship and internship courses of field to be changed based on the country's labor market needs and finally, educational centers play a more prominent role to introducing the capabilities of their graduates to the health labor market.

BUSINESS AND EDUCATION: OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRAINING

"This article examines the area of intersection of interests of universities and employers, shows the qualifications of graduates of regional universities, their readiness for innovative professional activities, work on the latest path and career growth. The possibility of interaction in the active participation of universities in activities to increase the competitiveness and growth potential of companies, as well as in the joint creation of business incubators is shown. The dynamics of employment of graduates of the Kyzylorda State University named after Korkyt Ata on biological education, employment opportunities for graduates were noted. The most promising areas of business and education development in general are shown. The technologies of distance learning and social networks are shown, new opportunities for online learning are presented; the formation of individual educational trajectories and interdisciplinary integrated learning. It shows the training of specialists in the field of biology on the basis of educational programs, the rights of teachers, if possible, the formation of the main elements of doing business in the process of teaching general education subjects for students of the educational program of biology, promoting the development of the local and national economy in educational programs. training specialists capable of planning and conducting research in this area, including those capable of commercializing the results. "