Appraising the gap in Business Educators’ and Employers’ perceptions regarding Business Graduate skills: A study on the BBA graduates of Bangladesh Open University

Abstract

In past decades, Bangladeshi universities have produced trivial number of employable business graduates who are creative, target driven, able to work under pressure and have adequate communications and active learning skills. Studies suggest that many of them also lack sufficient business acumen, leadership and negotiation skills and the ability to think critically and behave ethically at work. This study aims to explore the gap in the perceptions of Bangladeshi Business educators and the perceptions of local employers along the mentioned employability skills as possessed by the graduates of Bangladesh Open University’s (BOU) BBA program. A structured questionnaire was designed using google form and distributed among the respondents through email and other free messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. One group of respondents, which involved thirty-five BBA educators from different universities across the country revealed their perceptions exclusively regarding BOU-BBA graduates’ possession of the cited skills. The other group surveyed included twenty-five local employers who rated the extent to which they felt BBA graduates of the university possessed the stated skills. Data was collected online and analyzed using SPSS 23 software. The study shed light on the ever-widening perceptual gap existing between the educator and employer groups and suggested scope for fostering skill development in BOU classrooms to ensure the employability of Bangladeshi youths.