Quality and Job Performance of Community College Graduates: Urban Employers Assessment

Higher learning institution should be able to produce graduates with sufficient specific knowledge, skills and attitude in line with the national human capital development strategy. Continuous improvement of the higher education quality and capability are the most important for the current and future labour market demand. Therefore, the community colleges had introduced courses that are relevant to the needs of the industry. The main objectives of this article are to evaluate the quality and job performance of the community college graduates. A total of 140 employers were chosen to evaluate the graduate. The results show that the majority of the employers rated them as good in the field in specialization, communication, information and technology, leadership, teamwork, ethics and value. However, the employers rated moderate in decision making and solving problems, work plan, thinking skills, innovation and English proficiency. From the employers’ point of view, there is no obvious shortcoming in the community college graduates. Moreover, there is a significant relationship between the graduate’s quality and job performance of community college graduates. However, the quality of the graduate in productivity (salary) is insignificant except academic qualification and service period.