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

Perception of Employers on Hiring Graduates and Graduate Performance Level in Achieving
Company Targets

The majority of (69%) the employers stated that they hire graduates from the Faculty of Agriculture,

University of Ruhuna. Regarding the graduates' performance and skills, 52% of employers were

satisfied with the knowledge graduates possess while 30% of employers were satisfied strongly with
the skills of graduates they hired. Regarding performance level, 33% were satisfied with the current

performance level. Respondents (40%) were satisfied with the accuracy/precision of the work shown
by hired graduates from the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna. Table 1 depicts the

Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test results regarding the employers’ satisfaction on existing and potential

quality assurance systems in higher education in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, employers have shown
dissatisfaction regarding the existing system giving insights of improving an effective improved

quality assurance system. Furthermore, they were dissatisfied with the performance of graduates in
achieving company targets particularly. However, all the other statements were proven valid as well as

significant about developing a quality assurance system in higher education within the country.

Table 1:Overall satisfaction of employers regarding the quality assurance system in Sri Lanka

Test
No Statement Mean P Value
Value

1. Overall satisfaction regarding the quality assurance system in 0 1.795 0.073
Sri Lanka

2. Overall satisfaction regarding the performance of graduates in 1 4.146 0.000
achieving company targets
3. Developing a quality assurance system in higher education is 1 3.910 0.000

essential to produce outstanding and marketable graduates in Sri
Lanka

4. Developing an effective quality assurance system enhances the 1.5 3.996 0.000
performance levels of graduates in every aspect
5. Quality assurance system is a timely decision to minimize the 1 3.969 0.000

gap between company’s expected performance and actual
performance of graduates

6. Quality assurance system in higher education produces globally 2 3.911 0.000
competitive, marketable employees
7. Developing a quality assurance system promotes production of 1 4.096 0.000

industry-oriented graduates.

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