University Students and the Employment Market--A Profile of Present Graduates from University College, Nairobi. Staff Paper No. 74.

There are various assumptions underlying the University Tracer Project at the University College, Nairobi, Africa: (1) that there is a relationship between subjects studied in university and the employment sought and found; (2) that this relationship will increase as competition for jobs increases; (3) that this relationship is sufficiently flexible to allow for career guidance; and (4) that the experience of earlier graduates will provide a meaningful source of information for the guidance of later graduates. The interview questionnaire, which was administered to all Kenyan third year students at University College, Nairobi in mid-April 1970, had three basic objectives: (1) to learn something about the student approach to the employment market; (2) to learn something about the reasons guiding the students' choice of subjects in university; (3) to familiarize the graduating students with the objective of career guidance and thereby enlist their support and cooperation later. This paper is a brief review of the questionnaire. Statistical tables display the results in the following areas: total number of students by discipline, year of birth by discipline, home province by discipline, religion, sex, father's occupation, mother's education, postgraduate qualification desired, how job was found, status of job. (Author/RC)