Making the higher education graduates employability real: curriculum analysis of self-employment enterprise skills development

Abstract

This article analysed the relevance of higher education curricula in promoting enterprise skills and graduates' access to self-employment. A mixed-method approach was used. The study randomly selected 520 undergraduate teacher education students, 314 community respondents, and self-employed graduates. Data were collected through questionnaires, documentary analysis, and interviews. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were applied. Most graduates adapt to small-scale businesses like hair saloons 58 (18.5%) and transportation 46 (14.6%) in their surroundings rather than innovating new start-ups. Enterprise skills such as entrepreneurship, project planning and management, and financial management are inadequate. It is concluded that this shortage of enterprise skills results in poor graduates' competitiveness in creating and managing new self-employment jobs. Integrating self-employability content from economic-business studies into the teacher education curriculum and reforms of higher education policies for graduates' employability transition are recommended. Further large-scale longitudinal surveys and inferential statistical analysis on graduates' employability trends are recommended.