STEM Academic Programs & Graduate Unemployment Duration Reviewing the Graduates of National Polytechnics in Kenya

Abstract

Despite the emphasis on STEM education as a driver of economic growth, concerns persist about the alignment between STEM academic programs in Kenya's national polytechnics and the labour market outcomes of graduates. This research article explores the job search duration of graduates given their nature of course. The initial research targeted the 2016 cohort of selected national polytechnic graduates, 11 registrars, and 11 office of careers services coordinators. Stratified simple random sampling, and purposive sampling techniques were used to get the sample population. A sample size of 1834 respondents was sampled from a target population of 21151. The Cox regression was used to analyze the hazard rates of graduates of national polytechnics in Kenya. Findings showed that a graduate of a modular programs had a median time to employment of 34.95 months (95% CI: 33.2025 -36.6975) while the non-modular programs was 49.93 months ((95% CI: 47. 43-52.43). Males exhibited a 15% higher hazard of experiencing employment than females (HR = 1.15, p = 0.047 < 0.05), indicating a gender-based disparity. Those who applied for a job in the last 8 weeks of the study had a 12.9% higher hazard of experiencing employment (HR = 1.129, p = 0.000 <0.05). A high job search intensity resulted in a 22.3% higher hazard of experiencing employment (HR= 1.223, p = 0.015 < 0.05). Course duration had a 2.8% higher hazard of experiencing employment for every additional year. Reservation wage showed a very slight but significant increase of 0.0015% in the hazard rate for each unit increase in the reservation wage (p = 0.000). Conversely, certain factors were associated with decreased risk: those who pursued non-modular program had a 16% lower hazard (HR = 0.83, p = 0.028 < 0.05) compared with those who pursued modular programs. Those who migrated from rural-to-rural areas had a 53.7% lower hazard compared with those who did not move but lived in urban areas (HR= 0.463, p = 0.40 > 0.05). The article concludes that modular programs lead to faster employment than non-modular ones. Males have a higher chance of getting jobs than females. Higher job search intensity and recent job applications improve employment chances while longer courses also help. Rural-rural migration does not significantly boost employment prospects compared to rural- urban migration.