Employability skills: perspectives from employers and tourism graduates in Ghana

Abstract

Employers of graduates of higher education have often complained of a gap between skills and work attributes required by industry and those acquired by graduates. The main aim of this paper was to provide a comparison of views of employers and tourism graduates on employability skills required for employment by industry in Ghana. The paper was based on a tracer study conducted in June and July 2011 at the Tourism Department of Cape Coast Polytechnic, in Ghana. The study, which was cross sectional, involved a sample of 174 employed tourism graduates, selected using snowball sampling and 25 of their employers selected through multi stage sampling. The results of the study indicated that while there were no vast differences in their views regarding importance of certain skills, there were variations in the level of importance placed on such skills. For instance, the graduates considered the work attribute of time management more important than the employers, while the employers gave higher priority to team working skills than the graduates. An implication of this study is that strong collaboration is needed between higher educational institutions and industry employers not only to ensure industrial attachment placement for students but also for the students to acquire the right employability skills and work attributes, needed by industry