Abstract:

Universities prioritize student employment rates over covering more materials in scientific programs. As such, preparing students for the labor market is increasingly important for universities to retain existing students and attract new talented ones. Many studies view student employment rates as a consequence of fulfilling labor market needs and expectations. Therefore, many universities use graduate trace studies (GTS) as an essential tool to improve quality assurance (QA) and maintain curriculum relevance. GTS also provides targeted benefits to graduates to enhance the marketability of educational programs. GTS can also identify gaps between labor market needed skills and academic program skills.

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the program of the Urban and Regional Planning (URP) department in the Faculty of Architecture and Planning in King Abdul-Aziz University (KAU) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) matches the needed skills for the labor market by investigating graduates’ opinions about their experiences during degree study and after they are working in the labor market. This will help improve graduates’ skills and close gaps between labor market needs and academic program skills. To achieve this goal, the research methodology goes through three steps: First, Shed light on the factors influencing graduate employment rates in literature to propose a methodological guide for graduate trace studies (GTS) suitable for the URP Department, Faculty of Architecture and Planning in KAU.

The second is to explore KAU-KSA graduate trace studies (GTS) about the most critical factors affecting employment rates by investigating gaps between labor market needed skills and academic program skills. The third is to come up with a set of recommendations that will hopefully improve graduates’ skills in the URP-AP-KAU. A field study for the graduate trace is carried out to assess the Graduate's employment situation in the labor force in the URP Department, Faculty of Architecture and Planning in KAU. It examined the gap between the labor market needed skills and the academic program skills. The study lasted for two years. The results showed that there is room to improve Graduates' skills at KAU.

Keywords:

Graduate trace studies (GTS), Graduate skills, labor market, and higher education.