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© Proceedings of the Ruhuna Quality Assurance Sessions 2021 (RUQAS 2021)
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21 September 2021

findings of this study will be of great significance for policymakers in higher education to uplift the
quality of the Sri Lankan higher education system to produce quality graduates.

Keywords: Employers’ Perception, Quality Assurance, University Education, Satisfaction

Introduction

Quality Assurance in higher education refers to an ongoing and continuous process of evaluating the
existing status of the higher education system, quality of education institutes, and education programs

(Vlăsceanu et al., 2007). The worldwide growing attention to quality assurance in higher education
induces universities to restructure their institutional objectives and programs to cater their

stakeholders’ demands. Universities have understood that their long-term survival within the sector is

mainly dependent upon the quality of the services they provide (Tsinidou et al., 2010). Institutional
practices and monitoring of policies and methods to improve the quality of their education provision

can be identified as internal quality assurance while external quality assurance refers to the
institutional policies and practices whereby the quality of higher education institutions and programs

are assured (Shamsudin et al., 2009).

The four main stakeholder groups in the higher education system are providers (educational institutes),

users (students), users of outputs (employers), and employees (Schidler et al, 2015). Employers are
keen on quality in higher education to hire good quality graduates. Their expectations regarding

quality graduates lie in the comprehensive skills and knowledge which graduates possess to develop
competencies to match with industry demands.

The failure of higher education institutes to build high-quality graduates negatively affects the

graduate’s employability and the relationship between employers and higher education institutes

(Dicker et al, 2019). However, incompetent university graduates have become a common complaint in
the labor industry. The situation in Sri Lanka is also similar to the world context. In Sri Lanka, during

the last two decades, increasing concern has been expressed about the quality of university education.
Therefore, developing high-quality graduates is of utmost importance to mitigate the unemployed

graduate issue. For that purpose, it is necessary to identify and understand the perception of students

and employers on quality assurance in higher education. However, within the Sri Lankan context,
existing literature only provides the students’ perception of quality assurance in higher education.

Therefore, the present study aims to develop an effective quality assurance system in higher education
to minimize the gap between the employers' expectations and experience regarding the performance of

graduates. Thereby, the research findings will contribute to existing literature of quality assurance in

higher education by providing employers perceptions and it will induce an effective implementation

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