Skills Oriented Higher Education and Graduate Employability in Cameroon: The Case of the National Employment Fund

Teneng Patience Penn

The 21st century graduate labour market has become very competitive and unpredictable. Graduates therefore need skills that would help the transit smoothly and successfully from the university to the world of work. This paper investigated the case of higher education graduates from a cross-section of Cameroonian universities registered with the National Employment Fund (NEF), as graduate job seekers centre regional branch Yaounde. To carry out the study, a questionnaire was constructed following the Likert scale from 1-5, of strongly agree (SA), agree (A), uncertain (UN), strongly disagree (SDA), and disagree (D). Data was analyzed with SPSS, using the Spearman Rank Correlation. Findings reveal that lack of marketable skills and skills that do not match the demands of the labour market are some of the obstacles of getting employment. The paper proposes a more skill orientated curriculum in higher education as a remedy.