Towards enhancing graduate employability in information technology industry in Sri Lanka: an ontological approach

Abstract

Skilful graduates are an asset to a country, as the primary supplier for the workforce of the industries. Having an abreast set of industry-required skills implies employability regardless of the nature of the job or the field of employment. In a Sri Lankan context, the demand for graduates has exponentially increased over the past few years, specifically in the field of Software Engineering. The requirement for entry-level jobs depends on the skills possessed by employees. Thereby, the university curricula play a substantial role in the skills of the fresh graduates’ skills, accentuating the need to design the university curricula to match the industry requirement. It is identified that the key stakeholders contributing towards this is the employees (who are graduates with a degree related to software engineering), the universities offering degrees in software engineering discipline and the statutory bodies who validate, standardize, and moderate such programs and the software engineering businesses in Sri Lanka. The study will focus on different attributes and relationships of the above stakeholders and detect the gaps in the employability skills provided by the university curricula and the anticipation of the employers through an ontological approach.