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AN ANALYSIS OF KENYA'S BACHELOR OF COMMERCE GRADUATES'
EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS· AND TilE JOB MARKET DEMANDS
~~DAN KIMATHI UNIVliStTY LlilAl)
By
Kalei Anne Mumbua Wambua- BJ t 1-00-t/20 10
A Dissertation Submitted as Work Forming Part of the Requirements of the Degrce of Doctor of Philosophy of the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology.
April2014
DECLARATION
I, the undersigned, declare that this is my original work and has not been submitted to
other award .
any other college, institution
or university for the award of a degree or a,ny
.
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Kalei Anne MumbuaWambua
We confirm that the work reported in this thesis was carried out by the researcher under
our supervision.
Prof. Ken
Kamoche
Main
Supervisor
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23/04/2014
Date: ............................. .
Prof. Simmy Marwa Mwita Ph.D.
Second Supervisor
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23/04/2014
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Third Supervisor
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This study aimed at establishing whether there were skiiis mismatch between Bachelor
of Commerce graduates and Job Market expectations. The study objectives were: to establish what employability skills the Bachelor of Commerce graduates actually possess
as they enter the job market; to establish the employability skills the employers expect
from Bachelor of Commerce graduates to have when they enter the job market; to establish whether there were skills gap between employers' expectations and what the Bachelor of Commerce graduates had, and to determine methods ol' bridging the skills gap (if
any) between employers' expectations. The study targeted l 0,000 Bachelor of Commerce graduates from chartered Kenya's public and private universities, and 2,500 employers registered with Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE). Systematic research
design and stratified research designs were used to sample 1000 B. Com graduates and
250 employers (HRM) respectively. Questionnaires, focus group interviews were data
collection instruments. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were used to assess the internal
consistency of the measuring instruments.
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 18 was used to analyse data.
Both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized. The descriptive statistics revealed that there were employability skills gap between employers expectations and
what the Bachelor of Commerce graduates had. The study found out that employability
skills of graduates in Kenya are now considered to be the most important skills which the employers pay keen attention to. The findings of the study would be beneficial to academicians, future researchers, the government, employers and all other education players.
The study recommended the need of a joint venture among the industry players, UJliversity curriculum developers and other stakeholders, so as to bridge the skills gap.
The researcher believes that entrepreneurship/juakali would be the strategic approach in
addressing the unemployment problem among university graduates in Kenya and Africa
in general. Universities should train graduates to become entrepreneurs, this promote them to
be job providers rather than job seekers. Government/stakeholders should initiate job exporting strategy - source for job openings globally. Universities/industries/stakeholders
should establish partnerships to align Bachelor of Commerce programmes with the
needs of the job market. Universities should establish web-based career guidance porlids
and stakeholders should keep abreast of emerging new demands. Finally. the results or
the study contributed towards filling the cmployabilit) skills gap between the employer's expectations and what the graduates possess.
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