The Importance of Generic Skills for Technical and Vocational Students Employability

Abstract

Technical and vocational education is no longer a "second class" option in the eye of the community because of its significant role in producing human capital for industries. Hence, consistent efforts have been done by Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions to enhance the students' skills and capability. Recently, a lot of graduates are unable to secure a job after graduating because of a failure to meet the employer's expectation. The reasons are because employers normally have their preference criteria in recruitment, such as having a good employability skills. Therefore, this concept paper has been developed in order to study the importance of generic skills in improving the employability of Malaysian vocational students. The "CareerEDGE" model have been used to further discuss the relevant generic skills needed by TVET students in Malaysia. In addition, the elements of generic skills that are important to vocational students will be identified then it will be presented to the stakeholder, which are The Malaysia Ministry of Education in formulating effective vocational education and training strategies towards the development of high skilled and competitive graduates. In this study, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, communication skills and leadership skills have been discovered as the main components of generic skills to be addressed to vocational school students. As a conclusion, generic skills should be applied thoroughly by all parties because it will benefit the student by improving their skills and self-esteem in order to compete in the career world.

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

“…Any graduate who has both generic and innovation skills will be able to compete for employment and succeed at his workplace. This aligns with Onyeike & Onyeagbako (2014), Gokhberg & Poliakova (2014), Rothstein & Santana (2015), Mattis (2018) and Haron, et al (2019) Table 5 is the magnitude of the relative impact of generic skills and innovative skills on graduates' employability. With p-value <0.05 for each of the independent variables, it is upheld that generic and innovative skills have significant relative impact on graduates employability.…”

“…2010;Husain et al, 2015). According toHaron et al (2019), generic skills include perceptive and rational parts of individuals which are not directly academic in nature such as interpersonal relationship abilities, communication skills, team building and support skills, leadership capabilities, etc. that could be regarded as key indicator of graduates' employability as modern jobs require adaptability and initiative to undertake tasks while employers focus on flexibility, change initiative and cost reduction that give increased productivity(Selvadurai, et al, 2012.…”

Analisis soft-skills siswa smk program keahlian teknik komputer dan informatika

“…Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa persepsi siswa SMK Program Keahlian TKI di Kota Pontianak terhadap kemampuan komunikasi berada pada kategori baik. Kemampuan komunikasi merupakan keterampilan yang sangat penting dan dibutuhkan didunia kerja terutama untuk lulusan vokasi (Haron, Mohammad Hussain, Ali, Che Rus, & Mohammad Zulkifli, 2019;Wahyuni, Masih, & Mei Rejeki, 2017). Hasil penelitian ini sejalan dengan beberapa penelitian yang sebelumnya telah dilakukan yang menunjukkan bahwa siswa pada tingkat sekolah menengah telah memiliki kemampuan komunikasi yang baik (Asemanyi, 2015;Utami & Dewanto, 2017).…”

Implementation of the learning process: Efforts to improve the quality of vocational education graduates

“…One of the efforts in finding solutions to these problems is through evaluating the implementation of vocational education programs to find out the problems and inequalities that occur in each component of the program that is a sub-system of this study program. Evaluation can provide recommendations and decisions on programs implemented to achieve program objectives (Haron et al, 2019). Efforts that policymakers can make to determine the skills of vocational education graduates require detailed and systematic research to ensure that program implementation continues to be guaranteed and the reliability of vocational education remains as an institution that is in line with the needs of the community and policymakers.…”