Why tracer studies are crucial in the labour market

Dar es Salaam. The government has directed local universities to conduct tracer studies to help employers know performance and competence of graduates as well providing important information for curricula improvement.

Education, Science and Technology minister, Prof Adolf Mkenda recently directed colleges to have accurate information and get feedback from employers about the performance and competence of their respective graduates.

Prof Mkenda was speaking during the fifteenth graduation of the St. Joseph University where he said by doing so, it will help to get an assessment on the education provided in colleges that should be of high quality.

“Each university teaches well and its students perform well, but a tracer study will help us in finding out from employers, if the graduates have required standards or not,” he said.

“The move will provide an avenue for graduates to know if acquired education was helpful in their job. So, from now henceforth, this is what should be done,” he directed.

However, experts in the education sector say that some of the local universities lack the knowledge and expertise to conduct tracer studies, citing it as the reason for the rising job-skill mismatch in the labour market in recent years.

They support the directive, saying that the question of whether or not universities impart onto the youth the necessary skills for the labour market lies on whether institutions carried out effective follow-up on former students’ whereabouts in the labour market.

Known as surveys mostly used by higher education institutions to provide a sound basis for intentional improvement of both content (curricula) and delivery of educational services, tracer studies, they say have seemed to be a new phenomenon in the majority of higher learning institutions in the country.

Even in its guidelines, the Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU) provides that all universities undertake tracer studies in specified periodic intervals.

This, according to the commission, is to enhance the monitoring and evaluation effectiveness and impact of the teaching and learning processes in relation to the performance of alumni in the job market.

According to the regulator, the study also helps in finding out the job market orientation versus the programmes offered at the university.

The real situation

But even with the guidelines, most accredited universities have not been conducting the study and those who attempted, did not do it intensively to curb the widening gap of skill mismatch by potential workforce, analysts say.

The Citizen’s observation show that most graduates are not even in the alumni associations of their respective universities, nor asked about what they do and how they do in the job market after graduation.

“I have never been asked about where I am and what I do since I graduated from St Joseph University of Tanzania with a civil engineering degree, in 2017. Employment challenges forced me to opt for entrepreneurship which is miles away from my profession,” said a former student, who preferred anonymity.

Another graduate from the Tumaini University Makumira said he never knew that universities were supposed to conduct follow-ups on the status of former students.

“I wish they did. I have been walking from one office to another searching for a job, but all in vain. Since graduating in 2016, with a bachelor in business administration and accounting, I have attended at least three interviews, but never was I short-listed or told what exactly hindered my selection. Our universities are only happy during admission, not after graduation,” said the source.

Experts from the academia believe that in order to find out what the graduates were doing in as far as the education and training they have received from their institutions, universities were required to embrace the alumni surveys in order to reduce the labour market gap.

Speaking during an exclusive interview, Dr Francis Ng’atingwa, a senior researcher and a lecturer at St Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT-Dar Centre) said that most of the institutions didn’t have proper policies and expertise to lead in the studies.

“Tracer studies, as far as I know, are very important and can contribute to the achievement of what the quality assurance requires. But our institutions do not conduct the study and those that do, don’t do them effectively and consistently,” he said.

He said lack of experts facilitated ignorance as some institutions didn’t see the significance of the studies.

“They just focus on the multitude of students’ enrolment every year, but do not pose and think about why the employability rate is going down,” he said.

“Tracer studies should not be mixed up as market surveys. The latter is important for the institution’s business and does not necessarily help to improve production of quality graduates,” he added.

He believes the question why graduates were not being employed lied on the shoulders of the institutions they went through.

For his part, Dr Thomas Jabir, an educational consultant in Dar es Salaam said local universities needed to invite necessary training on how effectively they can conduct tracer studies.

Dr Jabir believes that since market forces dictate the kind of competencies needed by labour, universities were expected to be forward looking to introduce and manage desirable change.

“Graduate tracer studies are one reliable tool for universities to determine the quality and the extent of functionality of the services they deliver to their graduates,” he said.

“Results of tracer studies provide insights and contributions to explain the labour market situation of the graduates, and stakeholders and users are interested in which elements of the study conditions,” he added.

With the same argument, Dr Obadia Mollel said the knowledge on tracer studies was missing in most local institutions.

She said that institutions normally conduct self-assessment because that’s what the regulator needed, but rarely do they do it from the feedback of former students.

“We should opt for an advanced approach to tracer studies which should enable the institutions to get information to indicate possible deficits in a given educational programme and to serve as a basis for future planning activities,” he said.

However, the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) has been, so far, a role model to other universities as the Vice-Chancellor, Prof William Anangisye says that some of the institutions have been consulting his university on how to properly make follow up on former students.

“Being the oldest university, it means we have all the experience that has been helping us in conducting tracer studies on our former students, where many are public servants. We do this to help us improve, at times even consulting employers on certain skills,” he said.

“We have been conducting these studies and in 2019 it helped us to conduct an entrepreneurial workshop for our graduates who were idle. We also invited other alumni from other universities just to change their mind-set and enhance self-employment,” added Prof Anangisye.

UDSM has also, through the Higher Education for Economic Transformation (HEET) project, allocated funds to help improve conduction of tracer studies and Prof Anangisye believes that this is the best way to improve quality of graduates as well as feed the labour market with the kind of products they really need.

However, TCU has since launched various training on tracer studies in various universities that lacked the know-how and expertise in the area.

This, according to TCU executive secretary, Prof Charles Kihampa; was a catalyst for more institutions to have a chance to start conducting the studies to help reduce the skills gap as per the government’s directives.