Prof. Koko, M. N., KPEDEN, Kenneth & Dr. Visigah, Dumadi Livinus
Employers’ Perception of Skill Gaps for Employment of Accounting Graduates in Public Universities in Rivers State
Abstract
The study investigated employers’ perception of skill gaps for employment of accounting graduates in public universities, Rivers
State. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. Two research questions corresponding with two hypotheses were
postulated. The population of the study consisted of 1,312 academic and administrative principal officers while the sample size
consisted of 307 principal officers. The Taro Yamane’s formula and stratified random sampling techniques were used to select
203 academics and 104 administrative principal officers from the three public universities in Rivers
State.A self-structured instrument titled “Employers Perception of Skills Gap for Employment of Accounting Graduates
Questionnaire” (EPSGEAGQ) was used to gather data for the study. The three experts (two from the Department of Business
Education and the other from Measurement and Evaluation both in Rivers State University) validated the instrument while
Cronbach alpha was used to obtain the reliability index of 0.82 from the computation of the reliability co-efficient of the two
clusters of the instruments respectively. The mean and standard deviations were used to answer the research questions; the z
test inferential statistics was used to test the hypotheses formulated at 0.05 level of significance. Major findings showed that
both academic and administrative principal officers perceived that internship and mentoring programmes enhanced employment
of accounting graduates in public universities in Rivers State to a high extent. It was recommended that the three public
universities in Rivers State through the department of accountancy should come up with key areas that students should be
exposed to during internship in consultation with the relevant stakeholders. Such a programme should also indicate tentative
duration per key areas. Also, the Institutions should strive to align employees' career goals and aspirations with the institution's
objectives to facilitate employees' workplace mentorship. This can be achieved by offering clear pathways for career
progression, providing opportunities for professional growth and development, and promoting a culture of continuous learning.
