The Skills Gap and Its Effect on Post-Secondary Graduates

By Roia Dagher, Brock University

Post-secondary education provides many opportunities for students to complete their degree and gain experience within the community. One of many reasons that students attend university or college is to graduate with a degree/diploma to find employment within their study field (Wolff & Booth, 2017). Many students face graduating without a guaranteed job, and they begin to wonder, what am I missing? I have the degree, why am I not hired? Wolff and Booth (2017) indicate that employers are looking for graduates that have a set of critical abilities, for example, problem-solving skills such as critical thinking and professional strengths such as work ethic. These are some of the many soft skills students lack and that employers require when entering the workplace (Wolff & Booth, 2017). In this blog post, I will discuss how institutions address this and what possible solutions could be put in place to eliminate this critical issue in post-secondary education. 

From an administrative development viewpoint, a skills gap is observed as a substantial gap between an organization’s current abilities and the skills it needs to reach its goals (Association for Talent Development, 2015). During recent years, the skills gap in the United States and globally has increased significant attention (Association for Talent Development, 2015). Around one-third of employees with post-secondary degrees or certificates are unemployed (Fisher & Scott, 2011). This is a problem that students and organizations do not realize until they graduate. Not only are individual institutions suffering the effects of the skills gap, but populations, states, regions and entire nations are paying a heavy price because they are unable to locate or train employees with the right skills for essential employment (Singh & Sharma, 2014).

How are Educational Institutions Addressing This? 

Educational institutions play a significant part in constructing accomplished, independent, self-directed students who will become confident leaders in society (Babu et al., 2020). According to Viczko et al. (2019), the Universities Canada (UC) documents indicate the skills gap is because of the lack of involvement in post-secondary education, which results in a workforce lacking the skills that employers require. Educational institutions in Canada and worldwide implement experiential learning to programs. For example, the University of British Columbia (UBC) agrees that experiential learning is critical as it is part of a broader learning experience that enables students to make applied connections (McPhee & Przedpelska, 2018). UBC offers field courses for undergraduate students locally and internationally (McPhee & Przedpelska, 2018). Their goal is to provide students with much experience, allowing them to learn from reflective practice to gain critical thinking skills, which would be beneficial for the workplace (McPhee & Przedpelska, 2018).

From a global perspective, experiential learning is happening at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The university’s course is entitled “Administrative Practice,” and it prepares students to enter the work environment with soft skills. Nenzhelele’s (2014) study found that most students that took this course found it prepared them for the future. Educational institutions worldwide are introducing experiential learning courses (Nenzhelele, 2014). They must, however, ensure that the courses accomplish what they are designed to do. This can be achieved by a continuous review of these courses (Nenzhelele, 2014). Evaluating these courses can be done by collecting data from students through a questionnaire, for example, asking students what employability skills they’ve encountered throughout the course (Nenzhelele, 2014).

Looking forward

One way to bridge the skills gap is to provide recommendations to the community, institutions, and researchers. Institutions can reevaluate the administration work and recognize between the soft and hard skills that students achieve. Providing workshops to students about the importance of soft skills and how students can identify those skills by completing their degrees would benefit them in the long run. Many programs offer internships/co-op, but what if institutions can relook at applying those opportunities to all programs? Perhaps institutions can collect current students’ and recent graduates’ viewpoints regarding what soft and hard skills they’ve encountered throughout their post-secondary education. Furthermore, Rowe and Zegwaard (2017) suggest that further research is required on curriculum (re)design that allows higher-performance graduates to find employment. Additionally, Wolff and Booth (2017) recommend working with other institutional executives on the difficulties of strategically integrating employers’ interests with higher educational programming. If institutions and researchers consider these implications, they can help eliminate the skills gap and have students’ employment ready to graduate. 

References

Association for Talent Development (2015). Bridging the skills gap: Workforce development is everyone’s business. Retrieved from http://www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv:71533.

Babu, A., Arulanand, N., & Chandran, V. (2020). Skill development through experiential Learning: A case study for product development scenario. Procedia Computer Science, 172, 16–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2020.05.002

Fisher, G., & Scott, I. (2011). Background paper 3: The role of higher education in closing the skills gap in South Africa. Human Development Group, Africa Region, 1-54.

McPhee, S., & Przedpelska, S. (2018). Experiential learning, community engagement, and student experience: Undergraduate field school course in rural British Columbia. The Canadian Geographer, 62(3), 372–383. https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12436

Nenzhelele, T. (2014). Employability through experiential learning course in open distance

learning institution. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(20). https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1602

Rowe, A. D., & Zegwaard, K. E. (2017). Developing graduate employability skills and attributes: Curriculum enhancement through work-integrated learning. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 18(2), 87–99.

Singh, M., & Sharma, M. K. (2014). Bridging the skills gap: Strategies and solutions. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 8(1), 27-33.

Viczko, M., Lorusso, J., & McKechnie, S. (2019). The problem of the skills gap agenda in Canadian post-secondary education. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 191, 118-130.

Wolff, R., & Booth, M. (2017). Bridging the gap: Creating a new approach for assuring 21st century employability skills. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 49(6), 51-54, DOI: 10.1080/00091383.2017.1399040