By Tabora Bojang
Research published by Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal has revealed a significant mismatch between education provided by the University of the Gambia and those demanded by the labour market resulting in unstable and insufficient incomes and rendering them financially precarious
The study titled “The effects of field-of-education job mismatch on the current earnings of recent graduates of the University of Gambia,” is conducted by Lala Jaiteh from Gambia’s Ministry of Finance, Gon Xing from Central China Normal University and Abou Sidibe a teacher at the Niamakoro secondary school in Mali.
The research focused on the 2016-2019 cohorts of graduates from the UTG School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities and highlights the impact of the field of education-job mismatch on these graduates including their current earnings.
More than half (56.4 percent) of the participants who are currently working indicated that their field-of-study did not at all match with their current job,while only 13.3% indicated that their current jobs perfectly matched their field of study.
The research findings showed that field-of-education-job mismatch resulted in poor income. It said on the current monthly earnings or salary, a majority (38.5 percent) received a salary of between D3,000 to D5,000, (34.9 percent) received between D6,000 to D10,000, (20.2 percent) received between D11,000 to D15,000 and only 6.4 percent received D16,000 and above monthly salary.
According to the research, this mismatch is owing to a number of factors including weak and stagnant economy, saturated job market and low investment in public and private sectors. Also, female graduates were more likely to be affected by this field of education-job mismatch based on their field-of-study compared to male counterparts.
However, according to the research, out of the 250 graduates who participated in the research, “only 7.2 percent were unemployed and 5.6 percent were engaged in small business and retail. Some 94.6 percent of employed participants did look for a job after graduation and the average period spent searching for a job was 10 months.
It said all those who looked for a job during or after graduation did not succeed. “Of the total who applied for the job, 64.7 percent indicated that the vacant job advertised did not relate to the field of study as the reason for not securing a job, 23.5 percent cannot tell the reason for not securing a job and 11.8 percent believed the stiff competition was the reason for not securing a job.”
One notable discovery from this study was that the “curriculum utilised at the University of the Gambia is antiquated and not well-aligned with contemporary societal needs.”
It noted that upon graduation, only 40 percent of graduates will be lucky to acquire jobs in the labor market with the remaining 60 percent facing difficulties securing employment in the labor market after graduation. “Simply because the disciplines they specialised in are not highly marketable in the labor market due to job market saturation, as a result, many of them end up looking for alternative means of survival in different occupations that do not match their actual field of study and might be below their level of education,” the research said.
The researchers accordingly recommended that for these gaps to be addressed, there needs to be proper planning in the expansion of higher education and also strong collaboration between the University of the Gambia and employers to ensure a deeper understanding of the requirements of the graduate labor market to help narrow the gap between graduates’ skill sets and the demands of the labor market.
