Can Service Learning enhance Graduate Capital? Evidence from Sri Lankan State Universities

Abstract

Employability of graduates has been a topic of high interest among graduates, academics, employers and economists alike for decades. Researchers argue that the responsibility of preparing graduates for their first job roles, has not been adequately owned by the universities nor the employers. The graduates themselves, give less attention to the issue and usually ill prepared for their first job roles. Service Learning (SL) is a futuristic andragogical strategy that changes the receiver and the giver of the service. In this study, the researcher examines how SL can be adopted as an enhancer of employability potential for graduates. Since the SL is new to the academic world in general and also to the Sri Lankan education system, this inductive study adopted the Grounded Case Study method using theoretical sampling to study the influence of SL as a strategy for enhancing graduate employability potential -Graduate Capital (GC) in state universities of Sri Lanka. The findings of the study include the features of SL practiced in Sri Lanka, GC attributes and the extent of enhancements of GC attributes due to partaking in SL program. The current study concludes that SL provides overall improvement to GC attributes.

The Paris Conference on Education 2023: Official Conference Proceedings

“…Prior research emphasized the numerous benefits of academic service learning on students' development (e.g. Heffernan, 2001;Wijayanama, Ranjani, & Devadas, 2020;Novak, Markey, & Allen, 2007 etc…). This session addresses how academic service learning with businesses enhances work readiness.…”

Renewing and Revitalising the Social Mission of Higher Education

“…Different capital theories of employability have gained prominence in HE globally in the form of both capital subcomponents and overarching concepts, including academic capital(Hu & Cairns 2017;Lavender 2020), personal capital(Brown, Hesketh & Williams 2003;Lehmann 2019), ethnic capital(Abrahamsen & Drange 2015;Shah, Dwyer & Modood 2010;Sin 2016), identity capital(Côté 2005;Naseem 2019), mobility capital(Hu & Cairns 2017;Wiers- Jenssen 2011), career capital (D'Amico et al 2019Reichenberger & Raymond 2021), graduate capital(Tomlinson 2017;Wijayanama, Ranjani & Mohan, 2021) and employability capital(Caballero, Álvarez-González & López-Miguens 2020;Nghia, Giang & Quyen 2019).Employability researchers have turned to the Bourdieusian multi-faceted conceptualisation of embodied, objectified and institutionalised cultural capital and related concepts (not only social capital, but also symbolic capital, linguistic capital and educational capital or academic capital) to gain a more nuanced understanding of both employer expectations and graduate aspirations, particularly among minority groups, such as mature students and international graduates. Scholarship covers students at a further education college and the Open University in the UK(Lavender 2020;Pegg & Carr 2010), students from China and Malaysia recently graduated from Australia and the UK(Blackmore, Gribble & Rahimi 2017;Sin 2016) and employer practices of 'cultural matching' in advanced manufacturing companies in the US and financial services firms in Australia(Hora 2020;Parry & Jackling 2015).…”