4th Industrial Revolution: The Challenge of Changing Human Resources Skills (Published)
This paper comes to examine the intense reflection that arises around the issue of the fourth industrial revolution and the subsequent rapid changes. Changes that affect all areas of human existence, especially labour, drastically. Already from the beginning of the 21st century, international organizations (UN, UNESCO, OECD) are also keen to increase employability and develop relevant skills that can protect it.
Keywords: 4rth Industrial Revolution, Changes, Employability, Skills
Understanding Graduate Employability: A Case of a Selected Higher Education Institution in Botswana (Published)
The issue of graduate employment has generated a lot of debate and has become a phenomenal theme of discourse across professional gatherings, political rallies, media, commentary reviews, national economic debates and social networks. In the context of Botswana, studies also show that the country is currently suffering from the twin challenges of shrinking economy and unemployment with the current national unemployment being pegged at 18% and rising while youth unemployment alone is at 34%. It is against this background that this study has been carried out to examine the employment status of graduates at a selected higher education institution in Botswana. A quantitative approach that employed a structured questionnaire was used in the study to collect data from a sample of 250 graduates who graduated between 2007 and 2014. Convenience sampling strategy was used to select the sample of respondents. Data collected was analysed using SPSS version 21. Results of the study showed that 65.3% of the students who graduated between 2007 and 2014 at the selected higher education institution are employed. The study further showed that graduates felt that some of the reasons for delayed employment had nothing to do with skills mismatch, experience or competition in the market but as a result of other issues. It was also shown in the study that the main method of seeking for employment was through the use of curriculum vitae (CVs)
Keywords: Employability, Graduate, Hard Skills, Soft Skills, Unemployment
STAFF-PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT TOWARDS TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS FOR UNIVERSITY GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY IN CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA (Published)
University graduate employability rests on university personnel to enhance their employability skills and attitude in Technical and Vocational Education (TVE). University management in Nigeria seems to undermine the right university academic staff in skills and qualities that could contribute to graduate employability in global marketplace. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating staff-personnel management towards technical and vocational education and its implications for graduate employability in Cross River State, Nigeria. It was designed to provide a baseline information for policy-management on education in university knowledge production towards increased productive output. This descriptive survey design study has two hypotheses formulated to guide the study while the related literatures were reviewed. Sample size of 400 university academic staff was drawn from a population of 2,239 members of academic staff from the two universities studied using stratified random sampling technique. A researcher designed questionnaire was used to collect information from the respondents. Data was statistically analyzed using population t-test and independent t-test statistics. Results revealed that staff-personnel management towards TVE was not significantly low and also, not significantly dependent on ownership of the university. It was recommended among others that university management should establish a better work relations between TVE institutions and the labour market for positive inputs and better students’ orientation to the world of work.
Keywords: Employability, Technical, University, Vocational, staff-personnel