Abstract:
Graduate Employability means that higher education alumni have developed
the capacity to obtain work. The recent experience reveals that even talented
graduates have to wait for a long time to be employed after the graduation.
Under this circumstance, graduates’ unemployment has become a severe
problem in Sri Lanka during the last few decades. Therefore, this study was
conducted to investigate the relationship between graduates’ faculties and
the time to first employment. The sample was chosen using stratified random
sampling method. Under the proportional system, 5% of the total population
was selected for the sample. The sample of the survey is only from the latest
passed out 100 graduates of University of Kelaniya in 2017. Primary data
was collected by giving questionnaires to the selected sample unit.
Secondary data was obtained from the academic section of the University of
Kelaniya and through literature survey. Collected data was analyzed using
the SPSS software and MS Excel. Central tendency measures, Chi square
test and Point & Interval estimation were used to analyze the data. Analyzed
data was presented using tables and charts. According to the data analysis,
the average time of getting the first employment of a graduate is about five
months. According to the ANOVA table, P-value is 0.044. Hence it can be
concluded that there is significant difference between average time to first
employment and faculties at 95% confidence level. Finally, we could
conclude that there is a difference between the faculty and time to first
employment of graduates as per faculties
