EMPLOYERS’ ASSESSMENT OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCE GRADUATES FROM NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

: In view of deteriorating quality of graduates from Nigerian tertiary institutions, this study sought to determine employers’ assessment of management science graduates on key employability skills. The study involves the administration of questionnaires by means of convenience sampling on 680 employers of management science graduates in public and private sectors in Edo/Delta States. T-test and ANOVA were used to analyse data. Notwithstanding the age difference, the result obtained shows that employers rated the graduates of management sciences as slightly ‘fair’. Notably, employers in the private sector rated management graduates higher and more positively than their counterparts in the public sector. Additionally, the employers in the present study described management science graduates as reliable, employable and hardworking. It was recommended that the quality of management science graduates can be improved by placing emphasis on increased funding, infrastructural development, and educator-employer based curriculum which focuses on practical skills, as well as the reactivation of industrial attachment in the Nigerian universities. On the side of the employers, investment in the orientation and training of new entrants into work organization should not be neglected.

Keywords

• Employers’ assessment
• Management science graduates
• Public/Private universities
• Nigerian universities
• University generations