AN ASSESSMENT STUDY OF EMPLOYABILITY SOFT SKILLS IN THE BA ENGLISH DEGREE PROGRAM OF UNIVERSITY OF YAOUNDE 1, CAMEROON: STAKEHOLDER PERCEPTIONS, NEEDS AND CHALLENGES
Keywords:
21st century skills; employability skills; professionalizing BA English degreesAbstract
Purpose: Within the employability discourse, the expectations ascribed to higher education in the 21st century is the need to see studies matched to the requirements of the job market, specifically in the inclusion of soft skills. Because learning and teaching need to be modernized, professionalization and employability for university graduates have become two key themes in the Cameroon government’s national development policy plan: the Cameroonian Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (2009), and the Education Sector Strategic Plan (2006). Against this background this paper assesses how the Department of English of University of Yaoundé 1 is meeting up to these expectations of professionalizing the BA English degree.
Methodology: The Social Cognitive Development theory (Ormrod 2008), the Contextual Teaching and Learning theory (Mazzeo, 2008; Johnson, 2002; Berns & Erikson, 2001) and the Communicative Competence model of Uso-Juan and Martinez-Flor (2006) were used. The study is qualitative and involved 240 students, 4 lecturers of the Department of English of the University of Yaoundé 1, 12 employers and 10 former students of the Department in employment. Data is obtained from four different questionnaires, a document review of course outlines for active verbs in line with Bloom’s taxonomy, and a generic soft skills inventory from Crawford et al (2011), to measure the Department of English courses’ reflection of soft skills. Also, 650 test papers were examined for writing skills proficiency through an error analysis approach. For oral communication proficiency, 300 third year students were assessed for grammatical and strategic communication as they did oral presentations.
Findings: Results revealed that soft kills are not explicitly taught in the BA English Degree. Students cannot transfer classroom experiences to the workplace because of studies and work skills mismatch. Employer and former students’ data, together with job advertisements, expressed the need for specific generic skills to be taught, to enhance the BA English degree’s employability.
Unique contributions to theory, policy and practice: The unique perspective of the case study, and the insightful findings, certainly serves as additional literature in the growing research on 21st Century soft skills inclusion in higher education. The findings can also serve as possible best practices for departments of English in Cameroon.
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