My research focuses on elaborating on the experiences of twenty participants during their studentship and their transition into employment. The major concern is to find out whether university programmes are tailored to produce graduates that are employable, well identified and suitable for the industry. The purpose is also to collect views on whether stakeholder involvement is a democratic effort to link Zimbabwean university education to industry expectations. The research was conducted using a qualitative interpretive approach and indepth interviews with students, graduates, and industry managers. To collect data, an analytic induction was used to reveal categories and themes in the data set. The issue of democracy was pursued in order to determine whether there existed democracy in the planning and development of university programmes. The findings revealed that there was a need for dialogue and collaboration amongst the various stakeholders. The universities are expected to provide valuable programmes for the whole-person development support in order to make the transition into employment and job creation opportunities possible. There exists a notion that the gap is caused by the lack of support by the universities and the industry to bridge this gap through the creation of programmes to support the students’ training and development up to graduation level (205 words).

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2018

• Date of Conference: 25-28 June, 2018
• DOI: 10.2053/CICE.2018.0092
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-908320-90-2
• Conference Location: University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada