A Human Capital Evaluation of Graduates from the Faculty of Management Sciences Employability Skills in South Africa

Abstract

Previous research on employability has underscored the supply side perspective which for the most part focuses on curriculum design and teaching methods. However, ultimately industry is the consumers of graduates produced by higher education. Consequently, the demand side perspective on employability should also be taken into consideration. The objectives of this study were twofold namely evaluating graduates' from Management Sciences current employability skills from the demand side based on a human capital approach as well as to elicit employers' perception on generic skills graduates are lacking. To this end ex post facto research was undertaken by utilizing a questionnaire with a reliability of 0.97 and an inter-item correlation of 0.405340. The sample consisted out of 503 employers from diverse South African business sectors. Statistical analysis indicated that the respondents were less than satisfied with graduates' employability skills. The findings show need for the inclusion of generic business administration skills that specifically emphasise customer service, Excel training and financial management.