Project Title: CAL Graduates Employment Profile

Authors: Ma. Celina Eladia G. Meneses & Reina O. Habalo

Abstract

In order to address the observed mismatch between employment needs and education,
this research project was carried out at Bicol University College of Arts and Letters to review its
graduates performance, specifically to present: (1) the demographic profile of the graduates of
AB in Audio-Visual Communication, English, Journalism, and Speech and Theatre Arts from
2002 to 2006 in terms of gender, civil status, professional eligibility, and skills and interests; (2)
the graduates employment profile; (3) the skills and competencies obtained from their academic
training which they found useful in their line of work; and (4) the level of effectiveness of the
different existing programs of the college, as perceived by their graduates. The project is
anchored partly on the Human Capital Theory which views education as a process of human
capital formation and a form of investment which brings economic gains or returns to the
individual and his society; it also adopts the empirical cycle used in the practice of science which
consists of the stages of observation, induction, deduction, testing, and evaluation. Findings
reveal that graduates of the College of Arts and Letters are predominantly female, single, and
give little importance to government examinations in preparation for finding jobs. They have a
generally high employment rate, found regular or permanent employment within a year, and are
mostly making P5100 a month or higher. They have a highly varied job market, most common of
which are work in media, human resource, office management/administration, and customer
service. While a small majority of the graduates obtain employment related to the course they
completed, adjustments should still be made to improve these results. Among the four courses
offered by the college, only BCA Journalism got an above-average rating for effectiveness. The
three other courses have only average ratings, rendering an overall weighted mean rating of 3.46
for the College of Arts and Letters. The following are recommended for consideration by the
college: (1) Assign a curriculum committee to review and evaluate the existing curricula vis--vis
the findings of this study; (2) Create an instrument for a continual detailed assessment of the
curricula per program; (3) Improve alumni relations to accommodate this constant feedback
regarding possible revisions in these curricula.

Introduction

Rationale. One sure way of measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of any
educational program is through its output, that is, its graduates. In the case of the College of Arts
and Letters, the efficiency and effectiveness of its program offerings can be assessed through the
performance of its graduates in the professional world. The assumption is that if graduates of a
particular program exhibit desirable skills and competencies in the workplace, it is an indication
that such graduates must have been taught well and trained well in their alma mater.
In the late 1990s, The Educational Commission (EDCOM) of the Philippines pointed out
a mismatch between programs and graduates, and between employment and society needs and
underdeveloped graduate education (Tolarba, 2000). It is but right, therefore, that the Bicol
University assess all its programs to check on their relevance to their respective job markets.
However, such an assessment would be but the first of several steps that need to be taken in order
to truly address the problem.
The College of Arts and Letters organized a research program that aims to provide a
sound and research-based database to be used in the preparation of its strategic comprehensive
development plan. It consists of five projects which, as a whole, aim to: present a thorough
personal and employment profile of graduates; look into competencies and skills demanded by
the industry; assess the competency of the college in terms of its key components; assess the
competency of competitors in providing for the need of the industry; examine the prospects of the
economy in relation to the curricular offerings of the college; and prepare a comprehensive
development plan for the college (Bartolata, 2006).
This particular project is tasked to accomplish the first aim, that of presenting a profile of
the graduates of the college. It traces the whereabouts of CAL graduates within the last five
years, in order to establish their personal and employment profiles, and get valuable input
regarding the relevance of the training they obtained from the course they took up, to their
performance in their work (Bartolata, 2006). It presents that needed assessment that measures the
efficiency and effectiveness of the four baccalaureate degree programs offered by the College of
Arts and Letters, namely Bachelor of Arts in Audio Visual Communication, Bachelor of Arts in
English, Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, and Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Theatre Arts.
 Project Framework

This project, composed of tracer studies for the four course offerings of the College of
Arts and Letters, is anchored partly on the Human Capital Theory, which is also the theory on
which the larger research program is anchored. Its exponents, Frederick Harbison and Charles
Myers, believe that educational development and economic development are positively
correlated. They view education as a process of human capital formation and a form of
investment which brings economic gains or returns to the individual and his society. According
to them, a country who is unable to develop the skills and knowledge of its people and to utilize
them effectively will be unable to develop anything else (Cortes, 1993). This lends explanation
and support for the need to assess educational programs with regard to their effectiveness in
equipping students with the proper skills and competencies applicable in their prospective jobs.
In addition to this, an adoption of the empirical cycle used in the practice of science is
likewise applied herein. As explained by De Groot, it consists of the stages of observation,
induction, deduction, testing, and evaluation, wherein: observation involves the collection and
organization of empirical material; induction is the phrasing of an explicit hypothesis; deduction
is the derivation of predictions from the hypothesis; testing is the confrontation of this prediction
with empirical data; and finally, evaluation is the use of the results of the test as feedback for the
more general theory from which the hypothesis was derived. This new theory will again spawn
new hypotheses, to be tested on the new data, and so on, starting the empirical cycle all over
again (Bern and de Jorg, n.d.).
Anchored on the foregoing theories, this project came up with new information for the
College of Arts and Letters, taken from its graduates regarding the usefulness and effectiveness of
the knowledge and training that they acquired in school, in the professional world. In essence, it
is an evaluation of the relevance of the colleges four course offerings to the employment needs
of the society, in terms of the skills and competencies developed in its students.

Objectives. This project has the general aim of establishing a thorough personal and
employment profile of the graduates of the four course programs of the College of Arts and
Letters, and getting feedback as regards the relevance of training they obtained from the college
to their line of work. Specifically, it presents:
1. the demographic profile of the graduates of AB in Audio-Visual Communication,
English, Journalism, and Speech and Theatre Arts from 2002 to 2006 in terms of:
a. gender,
b. civil status,
c. professional eligibility, and
d. skills and interests;
2. the graduates employment profile;
3. the skills and competencies obtained from their academic training which they found
useful in their line of work; and
4. the level of effectiveness of the different existing programs of the college, as perceived
by their graduates.

Literature Review

The effectiveness of any organization is of central importance in the theory and practice
of educational administration. The Strategic Constituencies Approach on organizational
effectiveness includes satisfying the demands of those constituencies in the environment from
which the organization requires support for its continued existence (Love and Skitmore, 1996). It
can therefore be said that success is the ability to placate those individuals, groups, and
institutions upon which the organization depends for its continuous operation. The College of
Arts and Letters, therefore, would be said to be a successful or effective institution if its
constituencies, especially the industry, are satisfied with its graduates.
Achieving effectiveness calls for an assessment or evaluation of an organizations output,
in the case of educational institutions, their graduates. Evaluation, according to Tyler, is a
process of determining to what extent the educational objectives are actually being realized
(Tyler as qtd. in Bartolata, 2006). Thus, this study likewise analyzes whether CALs Vision-
Mission-Goals-Objectives (VMGO) have been achieved as perceived by its graduates.
Daep, et al. conducted a performance audit of Bicol Universitys AB English graduates
from 1996 to 2005. It found that said graduates are highly employable, and are said to perform
well in their respective jobs. However, while the skills they acquired from the institution did land

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them decent jobs, they were found to be wanting of specific skills that would allow them higher-
paying jobs. The researchers therefore recommended that the current AB English curriculum be
adjusted to answer the cited problem (Daep, et al., 2007).
CALs Journalism Department likewise completed a tracer study for their department,
through researchers. Their study similarly found that their graduates lack specific skills to be
highly competitive in the local and national job market.
The above review shows that for the College of Arts and Letters, there is still a need to
conduct tracer studies for its two other course offerings, specifically BCA major in AVC and
STA. Further, it needs to validate and consequently update the two studies that have previously
been completed.

Materials and Methods

All tracer studies under this project used the survey method of research which is
categorized under descriptive-evaluative research. A survey questionnaire was prepared, adopted
from the Bicol Universitys research instrument for the Graduate Tracer Survey (GTS) prepared
by the Bicol University Research and Extension Program (BUREPC) modified to fit the purpose
of the College of Arts and Letters research program. The questionnaire was divided into only
three main sections: the demographic profile, the employment profile, and the skills and
competencies. The respondents of the tracer studies were the graduates of the four course
programs of the College of Arts and Letters from 2006 down to 2002. With 158 from AB
English, 391 from AVC, 199 from STA, and 199 from Journalism, a total of 947 graduates was
counted to have completed their respective courses during this period, including summer and
October graduates. From this total population, a sample of 109 respondents was drawn and
further computed to represent each course, using the stratified random sampling procedure,
resulting in the following: 18 from AB English, 45 from BCA AVC, 23 from BCA Journalism,
and another 23 from BCA STA. The data gathered was analyzed using frequency counts,
percentage, and weighted mean ratings.

Results and Discussion of Accomplishments

Demographic Profile
Gender
The population of the College of Arts and Letters is predominantly female. Data
gathered supports the common claim that females are generally more attracted to communication
courses than males are. This may 1be due to womens observed aptitude towards verbal skills
and men to spatial and mathematical skills as studied by psychologists.1 Further, this may be
considered as a legacy of societal stereotypes where certain fields of study are assigned as more
manly courses and others as more feminine. In this narrow public viewpoint,
language/literature and other communication courses get to be colored as feminine courses.
The BCA Journalism population, however, seems to counter this claim. It turns out,
though, that the official list of graduates from the College Registrar reveals still a greater number
of female graduates from this department. It just happened that the sample picked to represent
their population was mostly male.

Civil Status
For all four courses, the majority of their graduates are found to be single even five years
after graduation. The trend these days is to ensure financial security first before settling down
with a partner and building a family. This may be the reason for the above results. The
graduates, educated as they are, are more rational in making decisions about marriage, putting it
off until they are more financially stable. Still, it is expected that there are always people who get
married early, as exemplified by the few graduates who signified thus. Further, it cannot be
denied that there are those graduates who do not follow the societal standards set for typical
families, so that a small population admitted to be either living-in with their partners, or separated
from them.

Professional Eligibility
Few graduates of the college give importance to government examinations. Data shows
that only about one-fourth of the population does so. The data points to the fact that only a few

1
Doreen Kimura as quoted by Daep, et al.

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graduates make it a point to take government examinations, which also means they consider
working for the government. The largest portion of such examination takers are among the BCA
Journalism graduates, followed by those who took up AB English. This may be ascribed to the
fact that there are more jobs in government that graduates from these two courses may apply for.
BCA Journalism graduates would qualify for many jobs requiring writing skills and AB English
graduates may specifically apply for teaching jobs as well as many types of office work.
It can be noted that none among the AB English respondents took the Licensure
Examination for Teachers. This may mean that those who have applied for teaching jobs did so
at the college level, which, until recently, did not require passing this examination.
Further, there are a number of graduates who took the PNP/NAPOLCOM examinations,
one who took up Journalism, and the other, AVC. They are all male. This reveals the reality that
there are students who take up courses that are not in line with their real interests. In this case,
very soon after graduation, these respondents still pursued the career of their choice, and with the
advantage of being equipped with other skills as well. Their responses show that though not all,
there are skills that they have been able to apply to a certain extent, in their line of work.

Employment Status
The employability of all CAL graduates is high, that is, a large majority of the
respondents are employed. In all courses, at least two-thirds of the respondents are employed.
This is a good indication of the graduates employability. This means that the college has been
successful in equipping their students with enough skills and competencies to assure them of
landing jobs after completing their respective courses. In addition to this, data show that they are
not just employed, but that they landed their respective jobs mostly within a year after their
graduation.
The majority of the respondents are employed within the first year of their graduation,
and, for the AB English and BCA Journalism respondents, the rest were employed by the second
year. While there are a few from the two other courses who got employed after two years, still,
employment was gained in less than five years, considering the description of the population of
this study.
The majority of the colleges graduates are employed in private companies. Except for
Journalism which has a fifty-fifty distribution between government and private employments,
only about one-fourth of the employed respondents have jobs in government, and about three-
fourths were hired by private companies. Also, the cases where graduates enter into self-
employment are only isolated.
Half of the graduates are shown to be regularly or permanently employed. This category
will soon be joined by 9 other respondents who are on the probationary stage of employment.
This is a very positive finding since it reflects that the college is able to produce graduates fit for
permanent employment, and not just any unstable job.
It can be noted that there is also a good number of graduates who are hired on a
contractual basis. This is also due to a strategy that private businesses sometimes employ in order
to cut down on expenses involving salaries and benefits. After the employees contracts expire,
they are simply rehired especially when they have performed their functions well.
The majority of the respondents have salaries within the P5100-P10000 bracket. For a
first employment, this is considered gainful since the minimum wage is on the lower end of the
same bracket. According to the Human Resource Management Office of the Legazpi City
Government, the current minimum wage is P6149 in the provinces.2
Common jobs among the graduates are work in media, human resource, office
management/administration, and customer service. All four courses have graduates working in
these areas. Other common areas exclusive only of Journalism graduates are teaching and
research, and telecommunications.
The information gathered reveals a very adequate rating for adequacy of skills and
competencies learned, with average weighted mean of 3.69. This means that graduates have a
high level of satisfaction about what they learned in college. However, usefulness of skills
learned only gained an average weighted mean of 3.24 which is at the useful level only. This
means that there is a discrepancy between skills and competencies learned, and their actual
usefulness in the graduates workplace.

Level of Effectiveness of CAL Course Offerings

Among the four courses offered by the college, BCA Journalism is the only one to whom
graduates gave an above-average rating for effectiveness. The three other courses got only
average ratings, rendering an overall weighted mean rating of 3.46 for the College of Arts and

2
Human Resource Management Office, Legazpi City Hall, November 2008.

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Letters. Action should therefore be taken to improve these three programs quality of education
on all aspects, while Journalism should maintain its current standard, if not make it even better.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The above findings have led to the following conclusions about the graduates of Bicol
University College of Arts and Letters:

1. They are mentally and emotionally mature enough to face the challenges of the
professional world.
2. They have a high employability rate, with a wide range of employment possibilities
owing to a sound generalized academic preparation; however, many are unable to find
jobs directly related to their field of specialization, exposing a mismatch between
academic training and industry needs.
3. They are very satisfied with the skills and competencies they learned in college, only that
not all of these are useful in the performance of their job.

The findings likewise revealed the average level of effectiveness of the College of Arts
and Letters in rendering quality education to its constituents. Conclusion is that there is a need to
re-evaluate the existing curricula and make necessary changes in order for the colleges existing
programs to be more responsive to the needs of the industry in particular, and the community, in
general.

The following recommendations are forwarded for consideration by the college:

1. Assign a curriculum committee to review and evaluate the existing curricula vis--vis the
findings of this study.
2. Create an instrument for a continual detailed assessment of the curricula per program.
3. Improve alumni relations to accommodate this constant feedback regarding possible
revisions in these curricula.

Bibliography

Bartolata, Jocelyn I. CAL Trends, Prospects, and Opportunities (A Research Program

Proposal, Bicol University, Legazpi City, 2006)

Bern, Sacha and Huib Looren de Jorg , Theoretical Issues in Psychology (n.p., n.d.).

Cortes, Josefina R. Explorations in the Theory and Practice of Education. Manila: UP

Press, 1993.

Daep, Joshua Mari C., Ariel B. Guban, Deane V. Imperial, Zymond M. Poja, and Ryan C.
Tan, Performance Audit of AB English Graduates of Bicol University from 1996
to 2005 (Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, Bicol University, Legazpi City,
2007)

Human Resource Management Office, Legazpi City Hall, November 2008.

Microsoft Encarta 2007

Official List of Graduates, Bicol University College of Arts and Letters Registrars Office,
2007.

Official List of Graduates, Bicol University Registrars Office, 2007.

Tolarba, Jasper Erwin L. A Trend, Issue and Problem in Education, Graduate Forum
(Bicol University Graduate School Publication, Legazpi City, 1999-2000).