BRIDGING THE SKILLS GAP BY ASSESSING THE PROMOTION OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Background: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS) instituted the STEM Careers Program to inspire potential youth of the country to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Their two-fold mission is to inspire the Pakistani youth to opt for careers in science, mathematics and engineering and come up with innovative solutions to problems of national interest. To ensure that the graduates of Pakistan’s education system are certified against a singular scale, a scale recognized in every country around the globe, the HEC and Microsoft have set up and appointed status to the Microsoft Imagine Academy to all private and public sector universities and Certiport Testing Center to all public universities across Pakistan. The goal of the Microsoft IT Academy is to provide a complete IT education solution that would bridge the gap between what the world of education provides and what the world of work actually needs.  The program is designed to help boost employability, digital literacy, technical and STEM-focused training and certification and 21^st century workforce development for students.  Studies have suggested that in the next 5 to 10 years, there will be a significant shortage in the supply of skilled IT professionals. It is the goal of the Microsoft Imagine Academy to bridge the skills gap by providing institutions the curriculum for technology education and the learning tools that will enable students and educators to achieve success.

Objectives: This study wants to assess if Pakistani universities are giving the university students 21^st century skills, thus bridging the gap between what the technology industries require and the quality of graduates the Pakistani universities are producing. More specifically, the research wants to know the following: 1) assess the technology curriculum from the point of view of the employers; 2) gauge the employability of the university graduates; and 3) appraise the current technology curriculum from the point of view of the educators.

Methods: The study will employ a sequential explanatory design. The data-gathering tools for this study will be semi-interviews and a pre-designed survey questionnaire. The respondents for the interviews will be top technology human resource officers of the country’s top technology companies and the top Pakistani university officials in the fields of engineering and the sciences. Moreover, 100 university graduates majoring in engineering and computer science who are now working in the technology industry, will answer the survey questionnaire which will assess if their skills are what is expected in the technology industry.

Expected Results: The researcher expects the current technology curriculum to meet the needs of the employers especially that it was based on what the Microsoft Imagine Academy is teaching to the university students. The researcher will find out that the human resource officers will be satisfied with the current graduates and that these graduates will meet the needs required by the companies. The researcher also sees the employability of the current crop of university graduates since they have been through a very thorough and relevant curriculum. The researcher expects the problems to come from a gender imbalance in the university graduates, skewed largely towards men and with only a few women graduates. Furthermore, the researcher should find the number of graduates as still insufficient to fulfill the needs of the country’s technology industry. The researcher should find out that the country’s basic education system is still hobbling to provide topnotch basic mathematics and science education to a caliber that would attract many intelligent students to pursue a STEM career. And even if they do choose a STEM career, many of them lack the basic skills needed to be successful in their university studies, resulting in many dropouts.

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Expected Conclusions: The researcher expects the following conclusions. First, there is still a huge number of unfilled job postings in the technology industry by the few number of university STEM graduates annually.  There is a need to encourage more Pakistani youth to consider a STEM career. The researcher will find favorable reviews regarding the university technology curriculum and the quality of the university graduates the Pakistani universities are producing. The researcher will find out that there is a huge mortality rate in the Pakistani universities of students being kicked out of the program due to academic deficiencies brought about by lack of basic knowledge in the maths and sciences.

Key Words: skills gap, 21^st century skills, employability, STEM, technology curriculum