Private sector prospect on the adequacy of art graduates employability in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Enhancing the Employability skills of Arts graduates is considered as a means of overcoming the problem of unemployment among the Sri Lankan university community. The majority of the products of the universities today are recorded as Arts graduates and the employability rate of them is considered low. As a rising sector and a main performer of the labor market, today, the private sector is playing its role vastly through its contribution to the labor market demands. In this scenario, the private sector prefers graduates who are committed to work, able with effective communication, having a smart personality and are well-employable. The study was aimed to examine the problem of the adequacy of state university, internal Arts graduates employability in order to fulfil private sector job requirements via private sector employers prospects, considering their satisfaction level for employability assets towards Arts graduates. This was conducted to identify the private sector prospect towards Arts graduates employability based on their knowledge and skills acquired by the degree program. The study was quantitative in nature and used descriptive statistics, cross – tabulation for the data analysis. The sample was selected from Colombo district private companies. A concise conclusion of findings of the study reveals that, even though the private sector shows a positive response towards Arts graduates‟ employability, it is not up to the standards expected by the private sector. Especially, the adequate level of Arts graduates language skills, computer skills, and leadership skills, planning skills, independency and relevancy of knowledge required by employers are inadequate. Consequently, this inadequacy of employability will lead to raise the unemployment rate among the Arts graduates in the premier part of the labor market, the private sector.