ANALYSIS OF GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS IN LINE WITH THREE PRINCIPLES OF ISLAMIC-BASED DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

This paper explores the expectations of practitioners towards graduate employability skills for graduates from Islamic related field from an Islamic Higher education institute in Brunei Darussalam. Graduate employability is among one of the key performance indicators for higher education around the world. For Islamic higher education institutes in particular, this indicator is considered vital because Islamic higher educations have a distinctive measure of performance as well as a unique pool of expertise within the field of Islamic knowledge. Yet, there is no specific framework that measures graduate employability skills customized for graduates from Islamic-related background within existing literature. As such, this paper intends to analyse graduate employability skills in line with three selected principles of Islamic-based development. The methodology involves conducting a basic qualitative study on a sample of practitioners and academicians that have supervised graduates from an Islamic higher education institute. These graduates had been placed for internship at their organization prior to their graduation. The findings have been able to generate a customized framework of graduate employability skills that are defined and measured according to the principles of Islamic-based development which are underpinned by Islamic epistemology. This contribution hopes to enhance the employability of graduates from Islamic-related background with the added-value of spiritual capital.