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Abstract

The issue of graduates' employability has become a growing concern globally. With many graduates, but limited positions in the workforce, it is imminent for graduates to possess employability traits. Employers also expect the students to learn a multitude of skills and abilities, on top of knowledge of accounting, while studying in the university. To reduce this gap, a student development framework, the APAcS Star was established. APAcS Star aims to bridge the gap by arming students with essential interpersonal skills. Based on three core Skill Areas, namely Critical Thinking, Communications and Leadership skills. APAcS Star is executed by further breaking those Skill Area into Traits. These traits connote an element of a Skill that, by mastering a number of those smaller Traits, will lead to a mastery of the major Skill. All the Traits from the three Skill Areas are smartly placed in events, starting with 'Knowledge Gaining ', then progressing to 'Knowledge Applying' and 'Knowledge Assessing'. In 2016, 31 students graduated with an APAcS Star certificate. In 2017 and 2018, the final assessment was further enhanced into two categories, the idea pitching assessment and interview assessment, whereby 19 and 10 students respectively were awarded the APAcS Star certificate. The APAcS Star certificate increases the students' chances of gaining employability upon graduation. In conclusion, this framework was able to assist the higher education provider to craft and develop a multitude of skills and abilities of its graduates, thus reducing the employability gap.