Abstract:

The world has seen significant changes in the last few decades. To cope with the demands of the twenty-first century, besides knowing the core subjects, the students need to know how to use their knowledge and skills by thinking critically, analyzing information, developing new ideas, communicating, collaborating, solving problems, and making decisions. It is vital for every Higher Learning Institution (HLI) to provide the essential knowledge, skills and expertise for students to succeed in their work place and meet the future challenges. In recent years, extensive evidence indicates that the root of graduate unemployment is due to mismatches between graduates' skills and qualifications with employers’ needs. Among more than 800 million people in the world, one-third of the labor forces are unemployed or underemployed (Vogl, 1995). UNESCO (2007) reported that mismatch of qualifications with employers’ needs is one of the major factors among students’ unemployment. Glenn, J. L. (2005) asserted that a skill gap was formed due to the gap between the HLI curriculum and the potential employers’ requirements. This phenomenon has also occurred and been discovered in Malaysia, where among Malaysian population of 28.25 million, 3.3 percent were unemployed as of July 2010 (Labour Force Survey, Department of Statistics, Malaysia). There are a number of challenges that need to be managed in order to minimize the skill gap such as the mismatch between the employee’s qualification and the employer’s desires, lack of proper career guidance by HLI to their students and the lack of information on labour market in HLI. Therefore, to ensure that every student is employed, HLI should enhance their education system in order to meet the employers’ need. This can be achieved by reducing the gap and building a Knowledge Management (KM) bridge between student, HLI and employer. One of the major features to be considered while designing HLI curriculum is the employer’s requirement. This can be achieved by creating a stronger communication link between HLI and the employer. The purpose of this study is to highlight the required employability skill in HLI through KM Portal. This research will be a guide to HLI to show the importance of KM to student’s career and future. This paper is produced after gathering feedback on employability of ICT graduates, through questionnaires and interviews, from 324 employers in throughout Malaysia. This paper concludes that with the existence of KM Portal, HLI could generate quality students which could satisfy the employers’ needs.

References:
Glenn, J. L. (2005b, April). Achieving tech equity: Three gaps, three sets of solutions. Business Education Forum, 59(4), 9-14.
Labour Force Survey, Department of Statistics Malaysia, (2010). [n.d.], Available at: http://www.statistics.gov.my
UNESCO. 2006. Report of the meeting on “A multi-stakeholder approach to address
graduate unemployment”, 16-17 November 2006. Bangkok, Thailand
Vogl, A. (1995). “A future without jobs”, Across the Board, 32(7), 42-46.

Keywords:

Curriculum Development, Employment, Higher Learning Institution, Knowledge Management, Employer.