The principal aim of this research is to understand the internship and employability from the graduates, academics’ and employers’ viewpoints.
In the beginning, I established an interpretation of the literature review in identifying the nature, value, quality, ability, intensity, and therefore the relevance of the information on a graduate’s
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internship and employability. The review serves to reflect a rational idea of how the graduates, the academics, and the employer’s perspectives are now positioned. First, based on the literature review, the graduates’ viewpoint on internship and employability has been under-researched, and it does not consider their voices. This study has focused on this gap by moving forward the graduates’ voices and perspectives—fear, apprehension, opportunities, what they do not learn in the university, expectations from internships—what they receive from their internships which contribute to their employability, and what they do not have from internships. On many issues, graduates have the same views and perspectives on specific matters related to employers and academics. This study shows that employers’ and academics’ point of views are aligned. Thus, the literature review exposes a limit within the literature on graduates’ perspectives on internship and employability.
Based on these discoveries, it would suggest there are debates about internship and employability, the stakeholders concerned, and the gaps in employability skills. This study has varying and complementary viewpoints and opinions on the mindsets of stakeholders expressed in the literature. For interpretation, in this study, both graduates and employers agree on the urgency of establishing internships. Both parties highlight the soft skills that employers prefer.
However, academics afterwards included these soft skills at a higher level in the curriculum.
Curriculum design and development are becoming an essential part of many degree programmes designed. These findings show that university curricula are contributing to developing employability skills according to academics and employers. The soft skills that are more able to attract the interest of employers include a positive attitude, grit, persistent determination, ethics and resilience, communication skills, teamwork, problem-solving skills, self-management skills, planning and organising skills, technology skills, lifelong learning, and initiative and enterprise skills. This finding affirms that employers are searching for these job-specific skills (employability skills) among others when recruiting employees. Besides, no students have gained all their learning experience at the university. Academics are improving the content in curricula to fit in the practical work experiences in complex workplace contexts provided by internships. This research has shown that the employers’ demand for ready-made graduates is persistent, and the number of students’ wish to take part in internships to gain employability skills is high. The workplace provides opportunities for graduates to gain soft skills and alternative technical skills. Thus, at first, students learn and practise those soft skills at the university, doing so in the employers’ workplace at a later stage.
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The findings have reported that academics are uncertain of what employers demand. Academics have the perception that some employers are unaware of the future skills they will need. Some employers need specialised skills while others prefer other types of skills. Academics perceive the added complexity of how to supply the needs of all employers. I notice that this concept is a concern given that a sandwich degree course is for four years. In my study, employers expect academics to have inculcated their employability skills before graduation. Academics discuss with employers the content of the curricula. Various meetings with employers give academics the opportunities of improving and clarifying the various curricula which could reflect the workplace, promoting the university’s trustworthiness in performance. This resistance to reform by some academics as pointed out earlier is improved by most of the personnel, who encourage comments from employers included in curricula design and assessment. Academics are for including employability skills in the university curricula, preferring to combine what they teach at the university and what graduates practice in the workplace during internships.
The injection of the employability skills into the curriculum by academics’ results from the complete cooperation of employers in internships. Employers have consented to offer more places to students for their training and development. Also, employers have agreed to enlist these graduates after their graduation and their achievement of their job placement. The findings support statements from many investigators who find that employers have accepted the duty to enrol more students for internships.
In line with conclusions from this study, I found that both employers and graduates do not agree on the duration of all the work placements. Employers favour long work practices while graduates prefer shorter duration placements. Academics agree with employers on long-term improvement and suggest the sandwich placement as a convenience. The sandwich placement allows graduates to practise in the employers’ workplace what someone has taught them in classrooms while still being students at the university. Students may have the choice to start multiple internships with the same or other employers. Some employers offer internships on a sandwich basis for a twelve-month duration. It scared students on this programme.
The first step of analysing the current literature serves to find the gaps in the literature is to ascertain how reliable the present literature is. I, therefore, continued to compile data on the fundamental aim which is the graduates’ understanding of internships. The present research highlights that graduates are behind the graduates’ perspective of their internships. Graduates
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highlighted that they were consulted regarding internship and employability. Once the neglected context of the graduates settled, I then discuss and negotiate with the research objective numbered two to assemble fundamental data from higher academic staff’ experiences of internships. I compared the information gained from academic staff against those of the other internship stakeholders: graduates and employers. On completing objective two, I consider objective three: to choose data from employers’ viewpoints. Those employers are engaged or have performed in internships. I thus correlate the data collected against those of the graduates’
and academics’ perspectives. I gathered primary data collection from recent graduates, employers, and academics. I used the policymaker’s perspective to analyse the secondary data.
Graduates’ views are gained for the research into their employability. I assessed and compared the viewpoints of graduates to those of other stakeholders. Thus, the analysis of all the stakeholders’ data gives an understanding of graduates’ employability through internships. The internship has allowed graduates to have access to unique employability skills, gaining experience being in demand by employers, and practise their research skills. Internships benefitted the three stakeholders, the university, the employer, and the student. Students had the benefit of experience, involved in career exploration, practising what they understood in class in work under supervising professionals and helping in promoting the organisation. The employers’
gains comprised new, talented students with fresh ideas, at a low cost, with extra labour to satisfy both short-term and long-term targets. The employer further projected a favourable image in the group of individuals living in a specific region. Employers gained a medium for screening potential employees. Academics benefitted by the programme in creating natural student learning in an environment which was not traditional, allowing the university to set up new partnerships within the community, and integrating academic and specialist courses. Students who took part in the academic internship programme were working with an academic; were registered for academic credit as part of that experience. This entailed that they were not only accountable to the company but also to their faculty for their work. With this increased accountability, students would promote an excellent foundation based on advanced education and practical experience. The university was part of the education indispensable to success in the actual world of work.
I maintained that the university should exercise considerable effort or strength as government, employers, and students wanted greater accountability efforts in employability. Stakeholders demanded a return on invested capital. First, the policymakers’ strategy had targets for an experienced workforce that sustains development goals. Second, employers preferred to select