Abstract
While concerns about graduate unemployment and the work-readiness of graduates in Sub-Saharan Africa abound, there is a severe lack of institutional data and academic research on graduate destinations on which to base policy changes. This article presents findings from an exploratory study of three major higher education institutions in Kenya. An online survey was conducted with recent graduates in a range of disciplinary areas, aiming to determine, first, what employment activities they were engaged in, and second, what associations there might be between those activities, the graduates’ background characteristics, and their experiences at university. Findings suggest that proportions of absolute unemployment are lower than expected, but that many graduates are transiting between provisional or part-time employment and internships, and have not yet obtained the graduate level jobs aspired to. Finally, implications are drawn out for potential national-level graduate destination surveys in Kenya and elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Acknowledgements
This study was carried out with funding from the British Council as part of the Universities, Employability and Inclusive Development research project (2013–2016). We are grateful to Zipporah Ongwenyi and Alex Ondieki for their assistance in data collection and analysis, and to Carole Rakodi and Denise Hawkes for their comments on earlier versions of the article.
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McCowan, T., Oanda, I. & Oketch, M. Towards a National Graduate Destinations Survey in Kenya: An Exploratory Study of Three Universities. High Educ Policy 31, 97–119 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-017-0044-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-017-0044-x