Fostering Graduate Employability: Rethinking Tanzania’s University Practices

Abstract

Globalization, partly spurred by technological innovation such as artificial intelligence and robotics, continues to disrupt not only economic trajectories and business models, especially in the developed world, but also the knowledge and skill requirements for graduates entering the labor market. A growing corpus of literature on graduates’ employability has identified barriers to employment ranging from skills mismatch to a lack of soft skills. Although the literature on graduate employability is informative and illuminating, the role of university practices in fostering graduate employability in sub-Saharan Africa, and Tanzania in particular, has been less studied. Drawing on the broader employability literature, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the best university practices in an effort to address the unemployment problems of university graduates in sub-Saharan Africa and Tanzania in particular. Four critical university best practices for fostering graduate employability are of interest—developing effective university—industry partnerships, aligning university education with a country’s development plans, regular university curriculum reviews, and strengthening quality assurance systems. Therefore, this article contributes to the higher education literature on the role of university practices in fostering graduate employability.

Graduates’ employability skills in East Africa

“…This view is confirmed by Sparreboom and Staneva (2014), who point out that a significant number of young people in low-income countries such as Tanzania are not yet benefiting fully from the education system and are therefore unable to move towards the development of important employability skills and better labour market outcomes. According to Mgaiwa (2021), this gap is partly due to the fact that Tanzania's universities and their degree programs have been nonreactive to the changing priorities of the country's development plans. Likewise, Ngoma and Dithan Ntale (2016) claim that skills inadequacy in Uganda is mostly due to the failure of universities to convey appropriate employability skills through students' career training, poor social networking orientation, and insufficient preparation of graduates to face challenges.…”

Academic-industry partnership framework of Mariano Marcos State University

“…A strengthened AIP promotes the acquisition of skills and Int J Eval & Res Educ ISSN: 2252-8822  knowledge and makes sense employment qualifications. Bentley [22] suggested that a continued AIP paved the way of sustaining collaboration with industries in facing the challenges of ever-changing business needs. While leveraging graduates with the appropriate characteristics for employment productivity.…”

The question of university graduates' employability: are the students aware of the employers' preferences

“…The available studies on employability in Tanzania are enhancing university students with employability skills through career guidance and counselling (Sikawa et al, 2018;Amani and Sima, 2015;Mabula, 2012;Mpehongwa, 2014;Shuma, 2017). Kamuhabwa (2019), Sanga (2019), Mgaiwa (2021) and Fulgence (2015) focused on the teaching and learning that enhances soft skills and its implication for employability. Furthermore, Mwita (2018) assessed the human resource practitioners' perception of the Tanzania graduates' employability.…”

“…Researches on the concept, employability, have documented extensively and intensively on the graduates' employability vs the needs of the emerging modern sector as well as the HEIs elsewhere (McDonald et al. , 2019) and in Tanzania (Mwita, 2018; Mbwanji, 2014; Mgaiwa, 2021; Ngalomba, 2018; Nganga, 2014). The question remains whether students who are future employees are aware of the employers' preferences when hiring.…”

“…Tanzania's Development Vision of 2025, and the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty – NSGRP of 2005] all advocate for HE to facilitate those enrolled in it complete their cycle of education with employability skills needed in the society. Thus, the HE sector was considered a potential link to the economy and required to review and update, or design a new curriculum to contribute to the increased middle and high-level skilled human capital (Mgaiwa, 2021; URT, 2010).…”