The Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching 2021 survey of employers reports direct supervisors of graduates are “highly satisfied with the overall quality of graduates”

Same as in the other five years of the survey where satisfaction was constant, from 83.6 per cent in 2017 to 85.3 per cent last year.

Quality under control:  “This is a strong result considering the disruption over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic to both higher education programs and the graduate labour market,” the QILT team comments.

And no, supervisors do not think grads are bereft of the basics. Their take on “foundation skills”  (general literacy, numeracy and communication and investigate and integrate knowledge) was 93 per cent positive in ‘21– at the upper end of the 1.7 per cent spread of scores since 2016.

The grads managers really rate:  are in fields where study relates to work. Overall satisfaction is highest with engineering (90.4 per cent) and health grads (89.2 per cent). Ag and environment (80.8 per cent), IT (81.4 per cent ) and creative arts (81.5 per cent) are the lowest categories.

How unis did on-line during the pandemic: This year’s results don’t completely answer that, the survey uses three years of data, starting with 2019, before the pandemic sent students to study at home. But employer satisfaction is largely in-line with last year’s results. The system average was 84.6 per cent then and 84.7 per cent now.

The take-away: “Overall, there appears to be a strong relationship between skills and knowledge acquired by higher education graduates and the requirements of their jobs after graduation. This result strongly affirms the value of higher education qualifications in terms of preparation for work,” QILT concludes.