Assessment of Employable Skills of Management Students: Perceptions of Supervisors, Employees and Management Students in the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast

Abstract

Graduate employability has become a rising concern among stakeholders. The study assessed final year management students’ level of employable skills in University of Cape Coast, Ghana, to determine whether they were able to acquire the required employable skills by the end of their study. The study adopted a quantitative approach to research and descriptive survey research design to find out the perceptions of supervisors and employees regarding the employable skills that are important for management graduates and thereafter measured the level of importance the students attached to those employable skills, the rate at which they perceived those skills to be integrated in their curriculum, their self-perceived level of possession of those employable skills and the teaching methods that were adopted by their lecturers. Proportionate stratified sampling technique was adopted. In all, 64 supervisors, 64 employees and 89 final year management students responded to the survey. Data were collected using questionnaires on a 5-point Likert scale. Mean, standard deviation and Mann- U test were used to analyse the data. The study found that both supervisors and employees attached a high level of importance to the employable skills even though there was a statistically significant difference in perceptions between the supervisors and students. The study also found that the students’ level of possession of those skills as well as the rate at which a number of effective teaching methods were applied were high. The study concluded that the management students’ level of employable skills was high. Stronger partnerships between academia and industry geared towards curriculum development to further enhance students’ employability was recommended