PO Attainment vs. Employment Status: A Correlation Study for Taylor’s University School of Engineering

One of the indicators of economic progress is the successful development of higher education and the strength of human capital. In the present status of the world economies, employability of engineering graduates is of paramount importance in nation building. Employability means that graduates should possess the holistic attributes demanded by industries. Engineers should have qualities such as problem solvers, able to lead and be lead, creative, innovative, good communicator, both oral and written forms, and with ethical and professionally responsible. In the job recruitment process, the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) system is still being used as the common selection criteria and sometimes lead to mis-hiring due to the fact that CGPA does not indicate the skill level of the applicant. More often than not, applicants with good CGPA get hired easily than those with lower CGPA. However, it does not necessarily mean that all those hired have good CGPA. This paper presents an assessment of the fresh graduate employment to determine if those hired within the first six (6) months, have a good CGPA and better programme outcomes (PO) attainment compared to those hired after six months from graduation. An alumni survey was conducted to determine who were those hired within the first six months. Their respective integrated cumulative grade point average (iCGPA) and integrated cumulative grade point outcomes (iCGPO) scores were then generated through the end of semester assessment tool (ESAT). Benchmark iCGPA of 3.00 was used as an indicator of good performance. Two groups were formed based on iCGPA results and statistical tests were performed to determine their correlation.