Shaping A Future-Ready Workforce For Brunei Darussalam: A Study On A Skills Development Framework for At-Tamayyuz Internship Programme

<p dir="ltr">Previous studies have explored on the perception of employers towards graduates' employability skills (Asmad et al., 2021). Within the context of Brunei Darussalam, this perception may differ when looking at the nature of discipline being studied taking into account graduates from both STEM as well as non-STEM background. There also lies a great deal of anticipation for graduates to fulfill the future challenges and vicissitudes caused by Industry 4.0 upon the job market. In this paper, it analyzes specifically the expectations of employers towards the skills of the workforce with a focus on At-Tamayyuz internship programme which supplies graduates specializing in the field of Islamic knowledge. The aim of the paper is to identify which qualities the employers particularly prioritize for interns participating in At-Tamayyuz internship programme. Secondly, to analyze how these qualities translate into specific employability skills which can be measured and included within the programme assessment. Thirdly, to develop a framework of employability skills for future assessment in the programme. The study used mixed methods comprising of a feedback survey on the responses of organization supervisors as well as an interview on a purposive sample of organization supervisors. The study finds that there are some qualities and skills which are not yet included within the programme which requires an upgrade in the assessment of skills. The study introduces a table of graduate employability skills with specific definitions customized for graduates specializing in Islamic knowledge. These definitions were analyzed based on the qualitative data which show how employers perceive how these skills should be measured in terms of assessing their employability.</p>