For any educational institution, customer satisfaction is one of the most important criteria indicating the quality of training of their graduates. Therefore, Esil University builds its training strategy in such a way that, ultimately, employers are satisfied with the professional level of its graduates.

The analysis of employers' satisfaction with the quality of training of graduates allows to determine the requirements that the employer has for the professional training of graduates in different areas of training, to assess its competitiveness in the market of educational services, to identify measures to improve the professional competencies of graduates, which will give the greatest increase in the satisfaction of employers.

In order to determine the satisfaction with the quality of graduates' training and to determine the set of competencies that a graduate should possess, the Quality Assurance and Strategic Analysis Department conducted a sociological survey "Employers' satisfaction with Esil University graduates and identification of competencies required by the labor market" in October 2022. The management of more than 40 enterprises (among them: directors, heads of departments, heads of government agencies, law enforcement agencies, banking and financial institutions, private enterprises, service sectors, as well as individual entrepreneurs, managers, leading experts, etc.), where Esil University graduates work, were surveyed.

It is encouraging to note that the majority of surveyed enterprises - 46.7% refer themselves to large organizations, well known in Kazakhstan and beyond its borders, 44.4% - medium-sized and 8.9 small enterprises. This fact allows us to hope that the survey process will take into account the competencies required by graduates for employment in large and medium-sized organizations.

 

 

Figure 1: What category does your organization belong to?To the question, "Do graduates of our University work in your organization?" the majority, namely 64.4% of respondents answered positively.

 

 

Figure 2: Do graduates of our University work in your organization?

 

During the survey we were interested in graduates of what educational programs can work in the surveyed organizations. Despite the constantly replenished labor market, the results of the survey showed that there is a need for graduates of such specialties as "Finance" (48.9%), "Information Systems" (48.9), "Information Technology" (48.9%), "VtIPO" (40%), "Marketing" (42.2%), "Economics" (35.6%), "Management" (31.1%).

Figure 3. Which specialty graduate can work in your organization?

Of course, the primary task for us was to find out whether employers are satisfied with the quality of training of Esil University graduates. Therefore, the respondents were asked the question "Are you satisfied with the quality of education that the university provides today?".

 

Figure 4: Are you satisfied with the quality of education provided by the university today?

The answers to this question were distributed as follows: the absolute majority - 46.7% emphasized their full satisfaction and 22.2% chose the answer option "more yes than no". This indicates that in general 68.9% of respondents are satisfied with the quality of education of our graduates. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to 20% of doubters and 11% of dissatisfied.

In order to find out employers' interest in closer cooperation, in order to bring students' training closer to the needs of customers, employers were asked the following question: "Would you consider the possibility of cooperation with our university?".

Figure 5. Do you consider the possibility of cooperation with our university?

On this question 40% of respondents answered positively, 15.6% noted that they already cooperate with the university and 22.2% chose the answer option that "they approve of cooperation, but do not have opportunities". Also the presence of 22.2% of respondents' answers that do not consider cooperation with Esil University indicates that despite this they are interested in specialists produced by our educational programs.

To find out the most attractive for employers forms of cooperation with our university, they were asked the following question: "Are you ready to participate in the development and support of educational programs: If yes, please mark the form of participation".

Figure 6: Are you ready to participate in the development and support of educational programs? Mark the form

In general, the distribution of employers' answers shows that the main form of cooperation they are interested in is the organization of professional practice - 51.2%. 23.3% of respondents are ready to participate in the development of educational programs, 14% in reviewing academic disciplines, and 11.6 in developing the content of subjects taught at the university.

In order to determine the demand for our graduates, employers were asked the question: "Are you ready to hire a graduate of our university?".

Figure 6: Are you ready to hire a graduate of our university?

To this question 73.3% of employers answered positively, 22.2% found it difficult to answer, 4.5 - gave a negative answer.

In the following questions employers were asked to name the main qualities, both professional and softskills, required for university graduates to work in their organizations. What professional training should a graduate have to work in your organization?

 

 

Figure 7: Professional knowledge and skills

Figure 8. Ability to work in a collective, in a team?

Figure 9. Aiming for career growth and professional development?

Figure 10. Readiness and capacity for further learning?

Figure 11. Ability to perceive and analyze new information, develop new ideas?

 

The results of analyzing the answers to these questions clearly demonstrate an interesting fact that today softskills, rather than professional knowledge and skills (44.4%), are of predominant importance for employers, namely: "Ability to perceive and analyze new information, develop new ideas" - 64.4%, "Ability to work in a collective, in a team" and "Willingness and ability to further training" by 62.2%, "Aiming for career growth and professional development" - 51.1%.

At the same time, we did not miss the opportunity to ask employers "What qualities do you think young specialists lack today?". The majority of them gave the following answers: responsibility, independence, stress resistance, motivation, creativity, persistence, purposefulness, discipline, patience, desire to build a career and others. It is the education of these personal qualities that we should pay attention to in the process of studying at our university.

 

Key findings

1.       The results of the employers' questionnaire showed that regular and quite massive replenishment of the labor market with new diploma holders, nevertheless, does not fully satisfy the needs of the labor market in specialists of economic, legal and technical profiles and they are still in demand.

2. the answers of respondents showed that the majority of employers regularly hire graduates of our university - 64.4%. And the majority of our potential employers are large organizations - 46.7%, 44.4% - medium and 8.9% small.

3.    In response to the question: "Are you satisfied with the quality of education, which today represents the university?" the absolute majority - 46.7% emphasized their full satisfaction and 22.2% chose the answer option "more yes than no". This indicates that in general 68.9% of respondents are satisfied with the quality of education of our graduates. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to 20% of doubters and 11% of dissatisfied.

4.       In order to bring students' training closer to the needs of customers, employers were asked the following question: "Do you consider the possibility of cooperation with our university?". On this question 40% of respondents answered positively, 15,6% noted that they already cooperate with the university and 22,2% chose the answer option that "they approve of cooperation, but do not have opportunities". Also the presence of 22.2% of respondents who do not consider cooperation with Esil University indicates that, despite this, they are interested in specialists graduating from our educational programs.

5. To find out the most attractive for employers forms of cooperation with our university, they were asked the following question: "Are you ready to participate in the development and support of educational programs: If yes, please mark the form of participation". In general, the distribution of employers' answers shows that the main form of cooperation they are interested in is the organization of professional practice - 51.2%. 23.3% of respondents are ready to participate in the development of educational programs, 14% in the review of academic disciplines, and 11.6 in the development of the content of subjects taught at the university.

6. In order to determine the demand for our graduates, employers were asked the question: "Are you ready to hire a graduate of our university?". To this question 73.3% of employers answered positively, 22.2% found it difficult to answer, 4.5 - gave a negative answer.

7.       Today for employers the predominant importance is not so much professional knowledge and skills (44.4%), but softskills, namely: "Ability to perceive and analyze new information, develop new ideas" - 64.4%, "Ability to work in a collective, in a team" and "Willingness and ability to further training" by 62.2%, "Aiming for career growth and professional development" - 51.1%.

8.       In the majority of employers noted the need to develop the following personal qualities in graduates: responsibility, independence, stress resistance, motivation, creativity, persistence, determination, discipline, patience, desire to build a career, etc. The majority of employers noted the need to develop the following personal qualities in graduates.

Recommendations:

1.       It is necessary to involve interested large employers in the process of developing educational programs, academic disciplines, as well as to hold joint scientific and practical conferences and seminars, in which it is possible to closer their cooperation with our university

2.       Students should be prepared for future employment starting from at least the second year of study. Such preparation should include both increasing the practical orientation of classes and through conversations and trainings to improve their social skills.

 

Student satisfaction with educational services is one of the most important tasks for any university. Therefore, care about the quality of services provided by the university to students, and in general the organization of their education, are the most important criteria for the activities of teaching staff and all services of the university. In the conditions of great competition between universities existing on the market of educational services, each university should constantly work on improving the quality of educational services provided to its students. Students' dissatisfaction with the quality of educational services can lead to many negative consequences, such as: students' lower motivation to study, the desire to transfer to another university, the growth of negative feedback about the university, which will negatively affect its image and, as a consequence, the attractiveness of the university among school and college graduates.

 

Student satisfaction indicators are analyzed annually, the research tools have been repeatedly adjusted, improved and supplemented.

In order to improve the system of education of Esil University students from 5.12.2022 to 5.01.2023 was conducted a sample survey on student satisfaction with the quality of educational services.

The number of students from all faculties of the university who took part in the survey amounted to 458 people (students of 1-4 years of full-time study)

In the course of the conducted survey the following results were obtained:

1. Your course?

The total number of students of 1-4 courses is 1602 people. 458 respondents participated in the survey, which is 29%. In general, students from all courses participated in the survey in about the same way. At the same time, a little more activity in the survey was shown by 2nd year students, the share of which amounted to 30.1%, 1st year 29.3%, 3rd year 25.3% and a little less 4th year (15.3%).(Fig.1).

2. What is your motivation for attending classes (lectures, seminars, etc.)?

(Choose no more than 3 answer options). The process of student learning largely depends on student motivation. Therefore, the questionnaire asked about the incentives that influence students' attendance. It is encouraging to note that, analyzing the answers to the question "What is your motivation for attending classes?" the most common answer is "the desire to gain knowledge, to learn something new" (71.8%), combined with such a variant as "It is my duty as a student" (61.4%).

 

The same statistically significant stimuli for students to attend classes are "The desire to meet, socialize with friends" (35.6%), "respect for the teacher" (34.7%). Of no small importance for a certain part of the respondents is "high quality of conducted classes" (16.6%), "lively, creative atmosphere" (16.4%) and strict control over attendance (11.4%).

 

3. how convenient the timetable of classes is. In our opinion, the timetable is also an important factor influencing the attendance of classes. Therefore, the next question, to which the respondents answered was "How convenient is the timetable of classes"?

Students' satisfaction with the timetable is quite high - 87.1% of positive answers, namely 21.2% rated the timetable as excellent, 33.4 as good and 32.5% as satisfactory.

Thus, 10% of the total number of respondents are categorically dissatisfied with the timetable for various reasons. In particular, dissatisfaction is caused by the absence of a big break, the time when classes start (for example, not in the morning), congestion on some days of the week, etc. And 2.9% of students noted: it is not convenient to combine study and work; they would like to study in the morning; inconvenient schedule for physical education.

 

Assessment of the quality of training sessions

4. Content (relevance, accessibility, cognitive) and forms of lecture classes (lecture-monologue, lecture-discussion, with the use of modern technical means, etc.)

One of the criteria evaluating the quality of teaching is the content and accessibility of the material presented. As can be seen from the results of the questionnaire, students are satisfied with this criterion, 71.8% of students rated "excellent" and "good" on this criterion, but this item should be taken measures to improve the indicator, as 22.7% noted "satisfactory" and 5.5% "bad".

 

5. Presence of connection between the theoretical material and the profile of the future profession. An important fact of students' satisfaction with the received educational services is their compliance with modern requirements of the professional environment. To assess this aspect, the respondents were asked a number of questions. Thus, students' satisfaction with the quality of educational services provided to them at the university is confirmed by their answers about the level of compliance of the received knowledge with the profile of future profession.

 

To the question "Presence of connection between theoretical material and the profile of future profession" the majority of surveyed students (90.4%) chose a positive answer option, with the difference that 45.6% note it only in special disciplines, and 44.8% note it in all classes. The answer option "it is not emphasized in most disciplines" was chosen by 9.6% of students.

 

6. The teacher explains the importance of the given subject for the future profession. Along with this, a significant number of respondents 89.5 confirms that teachers explain the importance of their subjects for future profession.

7. The teacher gives examples from real practice of professional activity, and also gives examples from real practice of professional activity 87.7%. These are not bad indicators, however, teachers should continue to pay attention to various aspects of the professional orientation of their disciplines, emphasizing such features for students.

The quality of educational services of any higher education institution, first of all, depends on the level of its teachers. In order to find out this important issue, students were asked a number of questions to assess the pedagogical skills and job satisfaction of teachers in conducting classes.

8. Content and forms of conducting seminar (practical) classes. The answers to the question "Content and forms of conducting practical classes" were distributed as follows: 68.6% are satisfied, 26.6% are partially satisfied, and the remaining 4.8% are not satisfied. In order to clarify the situation in more detail, clarifying questions were asked.

9. The teacher presents the material in an understandable form. Thus, with different degrees of agreement, but nevertheless, 94.3% positively assess the quality of presentation of the material in an understandable form. At the same time, 41% give an unconditional high evaluation. 5.7% answered poorly or found it difficult to answer.

 

10. The instructor clearly articulates the purpose of the class and plan questions. 43,7% mark "excellent" that "The teacher clearly formulates the purpose of the lesson", 34,7% - good, 15,7% - satisfactory, 3,5% mark poorly or not at all, 2,4% find it difficult to answer.

11. I usually understand the tasks given by the instructor during classes. Positive answers to these questions range from 94.3 to 96.5, which allows us to conclude that a significant part of students are satisfied with the quality of conducted classes.

However, some individual students have difficulty assessing the basic parameters of the classes being taught, which may be due in part to poor attendance or reluctance to give negative evaluations of individual instructors.

 

12. Questions on the exam or credit correspond to the content of classroom lessons and independent work. The final stage of mastering the discipline is the final control on the course, so it is important to assess the extent to which the student feels ready to pass the exam. The answers of the respondents show that 46.5% are completely sure that the questions on the exam or credit correspond to the content of classroom lessons and independent work, 33.6% answered "well" correspond, and 12.2% agree with it artially.

 

Once again, the total set of positive answers reaches the level of 80.1%. However, 12.2% and 7.7% indicate the need to analyze the quality of test tasks.

 

Organization of students' independent work

13. What difficulties do you experience in independent work? The quality of mastering the discipline depends not only on the quality of classes, but also on the level of organization of students' independent work. Therefore, it was important for us to assess the respondents' opinion in this direction as well. The answers of the surveyed students indicate that the most common problems in the organization of independent work are: insufficient amount of time for its implementation (32.1%). However, it should be taken into account that this answer option can be associated with the problems of students' self-organization.

Another variant of the most popular answers was: "lack of information" - 30.8%, "high labor intensity" - 28.%.

14. Do your teachers help you to organize your independent work effectively (consulting, methodical recommendations, etc.)? Answers to the qualifying question on the same topic "Do your teachers help you to organize your independent work effectively" confirm that 63.3% feel the necessary support from their teachers.

14.6% believe that the assistance provided to them is insufficient, and 17.7% did not ask teachers for help in organizing independent work at all. 4.4% claim that they did not receive the necessary counseling. In the teaching load, 15 hours are allocated for SRSPs, which in fact are not carried out, and within these hours it is necessary to schedule and counsel students.

15. Evaluate the assistance of academic supervisors in writing term papers. An alarming trend is observed in evaluating the assistance of academic supervisors in writing term papers. Thus, to the question "Evaluate the supervisor's help in writing term papers" only 35.2% of respondents are fully satisfied with the joint work, 55.5% are satisfied only to some extent, and 9.3% are not satisfied.

In this regard, heads of departments should take measures to improve the organization of teachers' work with students in the process of writing term papers. Although the value is not critical, but it requires certain measures to increase the satisfaction of students with the joint work in terms of writing term projects.

16. Please, write your wishes for improving the quality of training sessions.

- "It would be much more logical and effective if all lecturers would send lectures in electronic format to students and explain their essence during the class instead of just reading them from the screen and making us take notes";

- "Teachers deliver information in a language inaccessible to us, downloaded from the Internet and tell us the same thing in incomprehensible terms, there is simply no desire to attend lectures and seminars";

- "Do not read monotonously from a presentation or paper. Work with the audience."

- " Presentations from which read terrible, both in terms of design and content, the text on the entire slide, which does not want to read."

- " More meetings with good businessmen of Kazakhstan, it would improve the business abilities of all students interested in business";

- "Stake on quality not quantity";

- "It is necessary to add interactivity, demand attendance, tardiness of more than 10 minutes should not be allowed on a pair, because there is no discipline. Because of the lack of discipline, the minimum number of students sit in a pair";

- "There are teachers who explain in an accessible way and interest us to study the subject, such as Berstembaeva R. K., Musina A. A., Lukpanova Zh. A., Lukpanova Zh. O., there are also teachers who do not really teach and sometimes do not even come";

- "And more technological or innovative type of teaching (let's be honest, some pairs are boring and not competent, students are more interested in hanging out in their phones than listening to teachers";

- "Techniques to improve, projectors and computers";

- "Some teachers are not competent enough or do not understand the essence of the discipline themselves."

- "Lectures and seminars are monotonous, teachers just read from slides! They do not attract students"

- "Rather not a wish, I want to express my gratitude to the teachers for sharing knowledge, I want to thank Nursula Mukhambetovna very interesting slides, readiness to the subject";

-"...put Nadezhda Vladimirovna to teach us. and more activity, involvement of teachers in teaching us as future specialists".

 

Based on the study conducted, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1. In general, student satisfaction with the quality of educational services is about 90% .

2. Students' satisfaction with the timetable is quite high - 90% of positive answers (21.2% evaluated the timetable as excellent, 33.4 as good and 32.5% as satisfactory).

3. the main incentives for attending classes are "the desire to gain knowledge, to learn something new" (71.8%), combined with such a variant as "It is my duty as a student" (61.4%).

4. The majority of students (68.6%) are satisfied with the content and forms of organization of practical and seminar classes, they understand the logic of the lecturers' presentation of materials, the formulation of class objectives, and the tasks given by the instructor.

5. The dominant majority of respondents (92.3%) confirms that the examination tasks correspond to the materials mastered in the process of studying disciplines.

6. The majority of teachers pay due attention to the importance of their subjects for the future profession (89.5%), and also give examples from the real practice of professional activity (87.7%), the proposed materials in the context of disciplines in general correspond to the professional profile.