The Impact of Students’ Industrial Training on their Employability Status after Graduation: Evidence from Kumasi in Ghana

Abstract

A current development in Ghana where students graduating from the tertiary institutions find it difficult to secure
employment has become extremely worrisome. Employers have complained over the years that, though students are
knowledgeable, they lack practical skills hence they become less useful to industry. Realizing this deficiency, many
institutions have developed industrial training model to address the issue. The study therefore sought to investigate
the effect industrial training could have on students’ employability. A cross sectional research was conducted on
employers in the Kumasi Metropolis in the country. Three groups of respondents were sampled namely; employers,
jobless graduates seeking employment and graduates already employed. In respect of these groups, 93 employers
and 120 graduates were sampled for the research. Since the sampled size was greater than 30, the Wilcoxon sign
rank test was adopted to test for significant difference between two scenarios in each variable so that the research
hypothesis be decided on. The wilcoxon’s signed ranked test concluded that alternate hypothesis H1, H4 and H5 were
accepted whiles their respective null hypothesis be rejected. Contrary, alternate hypothesis 2 and 3 were rejected
whiles their null hypothesis accepted because the scenarios used for the test in the respective variables indicated no
significant difference.
Keywords: Employability, Graduation, Industrial, Status and Kumasi, Ghana Training.