Abstract:
Some philosophers believe that proactive success in various educational fields has been
responsible for creating a new world outlook for a modern man. Manpower planning is an
important issue, which aims at developrtlent, utilization, improvement and preservation of
the knowledge stock of human resources. When finding suitable employments the biggest
obstacle faced by graduates is the lack of professional education qualifications sought by
employers (Science and Technology Policy Research Division, 2004).
Due to the less demand for the academic degrees in recent years, undergraduates show an
increasing interest to follow various professional educational programs offered by different
professional bodies. On the other hand, graduate unemployment or underemployment is
attributed to a mismatch between the aspirations of graduates and employment opportunities
available for them (Ehrenreich, 1989).So, with a flood of new graduates individuals are
having a tough time in finding jobs in an increasingly competitive labor market (Gilbert,
1998).
In this setting, the specific objective of this study is to identifY whether those selected
professional educational programs would really contribute to undergraduates' career
advancement. The study was based on preliminary and secondary data collection. As the
sample size, 100 employed B.COM students from the Kelaniya University were selected
from various business organizations in Colombo District. Primary data was collected based
on a depth interviewing two parties of Professional bodies and Management executives.
70% of respondents believed the fact that skills and knowledge obtained by the professional
programmes that they followed will help greatly for the career achievement.
Thus, the study recommends that on one hand, professional programmes should introduce
entrepreneurial training and development as a compulsory area into their educational
programs. On the other hand, "interprofessional education" should be introduced to
professional and university education in order to mitigate the mismatch between job
aspirants' desires and job opportunities.
