Soft skills development in higher education institutions (original) (raw)
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A Study of Soft Skills to Be Instilled Within Management Students
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Modern organizations in today’s challenging & fast-paced technocrat environment require a variety of skills like – technical, cognitive, interpersonal, social, hard & soft skills etc. to smoothly carryout complex business activities. In today’s digital age, where internet is utilized by the organizations as a sole / alternate channel to compete globally – has actually created a demand urgency for new skill-sets. Such skill-sets contribute towards the country’s economic development. The challenges of dealing with rapid technological changes has become a matter of grave concern for employers. They have expressed dissatisfaction by raising eyebrows over the skill-quality of fresh graduates. Latest reports have highlighted that students in academia are trained only on technical topics related to their field of career / discipline and there is a minimal or equivalent to no efforts on soft skills development. As a result, many management degree holders are facing employment challenges due...
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Despite the critical role played by soft skills in ensuring employability and career development among graduates, evidence suggests a huge lack of these skills among graduates in Tanzania. Against this backdrop, this paper explored factors contributing to lack of soft skills among higher learning graduates in the country and recommended effective strategies of ensuring acquisition of soft skills by the graduates. The paper critically reviewed documents related to factors contributing to lack of soft skills among the graduates in Tanzania. The study revealed that lack of soft skills among graduates fundamentally emanates from poor curriculum which does not consider soft skills right from primary to higher learning level, ineffective educational policies and reforms that do not give emphasise on soft skills, incompetent trainers, inadequate teaching and learning facilities as well as lack of career guidance programs in academic institutions. These factors should be holistically addres...
Soft Skills Development in Higher Education
Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2020
Nowadays, as a result of economic changes, employers are eager to look for employees with applied skills rather than cognitive skills. Diplomas are not being considered as a definitive indicator of students' professional intelligence as it used to be before. Fourth Industry Revolution has dramatically changed labor market and knowledge is now acknowledged as strength of productivity and economic growth, and information technology has acquired great importance. In such a situation, whether employees start their career or change a job, they can show successful performance, if they can change and update themselves continuously, build positive interpersonal relationships in the workplace, learn and win in the unpredictable challenges of the work place. Accordingly, today the graduates of Higher Education need to master not only professional skills of their job, but also various soft skills, including the ability to communicate, coordinate, work under pressure, and solve problems. The purpose of this article is to provide literature on the connection of soft skills with employability and world labour market, the role of soft skills in career success for future professionals. The article also examines the definition and selection of the most demanding soft skills from the perspective of different literature. The role of Higher Education in forming and developing soft skills will then be discussed. The article illustrates the results of survey carried out with the aim to analyze the degree of integration of soft skills in Study Skills program that is taught for bachelor students in Uzbek State World Languages University and academic curricula.
2016
There is still no formally agreed upon, universal set of soft skills. The lack of soft skills competence among graduates from public universities (PUs) is an issue and a reason for unsuccessful job applications. Students in PUs need to be guided to acquire the relevant soft skills and need to have role models to be professionally and socially competent. They can actually learn much from their lecturers or educators as role models. In a recent exploratory study, educators selected from PUs were individually interviewed to capture their understanding and conception of soft skills as part of their professional contribution to support the effort to foster and ensure the acquisition of soft skills among university students in Malaysia. This paper provides a glimpse into three PU educators' understanding and conception of soft skills within their current professional. Their thoughts on soft skills and their propositions of other possible skills that could be included as soft skills, a...
2018
УДК 378(594) ASSESSING SOFT SKILLS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS: FRAMEWORK FOR IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS, INNOVATION AND COMPETENCE OF HIGHER EDUCATION GRADUATES Ansar, Arifin S., Ikhfan H. Research shows that soft skills, such as teamwork capability, creativity, time management, problem solving skills, communication skills, conflict management, leadership skills, cultural awareness, information management skills and work ethic, are the affective skills most demanded by industries/companies of today's entry-level employees. However, it is this same set of skills that industries claim are still not adequately teaching to the students in the higher education. The research was aimed at identifying life skill formation based teaching and learning model and concept by integrating and synergizing hard skills and soft skills. The research results in the mapped soft skill mastery profile of the students that was at the high category of 72,24%. The mapping will be used as the basic referenc...
The Role of Soft Skills within Business Students towards Graduate Employability
Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business
This study aims to investigate the impacts of soft skills possessed by graduates from a public university on their employment opportunity. Previous studies revealed that soft skills are crucial for their employability. A total of 234 graduates were selected as the sample of this study. The data analysis by SPSS found that employability was positively associated with leadership skills, teamwork skills, and communication skills. Furthermore, leadership skills possessed by graduates have the strongest influence on employment opportunities among the three independent variables. The study adds more information to the current debate in this area and provides practical contributions to the management of the university, particularly in planning various students' upskilling programmes to increase the rate of graduate employability. The findings suggest that the university should focus on leadership, teamwork, and communication skills in the teaching and learning process.
International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation
Proper soft skills occupy a key role in realizing a prosperous career as well as during social collaborations in society. These skills are also extremely required by employers hiring new alumni. The central target of this survey is to explore students’ insights on the importance of soft skills for their education and employment. A questionnaire will be designed as the major data collection procedure and will be administered to university students at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences as well as the faculty of Sciences at Moulay Ismail University in order to elicit as much feedback as possible. Besides, the major hypothesis of this study is to find out whether soft skills are useful for social integration and career advancement and whether they contribute considerably to students’ academic performance. In addition to this, this paper will be suggesting certain measures for improving the soft skills of students, which may also help improve their employment perspectives.
A Study Exploring Soft Skills in Higher Education
Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability
There is a need for improved skills development within the UK’s Higher Education Institutions (HEI) stemming from the disconnect between the expectations of employers of the skills graduates have and the skills graduates have gained during their degree. It is well-known now that there is a clear skills gap. The present study aims to explore the effect of graduates and students' perception of skills development in HEI in the UK. A total of 420 participants completed an online survey to explore their perception as well as their confidence of skills development by rating each skill on a Likert scale. The paper discusses the results in light of pedagogical strategies developed to teach soft skills in HE. The paper concludes with recommendations for teaching practice.
Importance of Soft Skills for Education and Career Success
Appropriate soft skills play an important role in a successful career as well as during social interactions in the society. These skills are also highly sought after by employers recruiting fresh graduates. The main purpose of this study was to investigate students' perceptions of the importance of soft skills for their education and employment. A questionnaire was used for data collection and 188 undergraduate business management students from four universities in Singapore participated in this study. It was found that a majority of the respondents felt that soft skills were useful for social interaction as well as for career advancement. However, they did not think that these skills contribute considerably to their academic performance. The top five important soft skills identified by the students were: teamwork and collaboration, decision-making, problem-solving, time management and critical thinking skills. This paper suggests certain measures for improving soft skills of students which may also help improve their employment perspectives.