How Employees View Graduates: The Non-Campus Countries' Perspective

Abstract

This study aimed to determine how adequately the on-campus experience at The University of the West Indies (UWI) prepared its graduates for the challenges of the modern labour market in a number of pertinent areas: 1) the breadth and depth of knowledge base, 2) leadership capabilities, 3) collaborative and teamwork skills, 4) technical competencies, 5) flexibility and adaptiveness. Analyses of the qualitative data that emerged from the 146 employer respondents in the NCCs, coupled with their scores on the closed-ended Likert scales. Suggested that, while more than half of them selected UWI as their choice of university-educated employees, the graduates were meeting their expectations only moderately. Extremely negative or positive views were non-existent. The paper reports both the weaknesses and strengths to which employers referred most repeatedly in their interviews.