The Employability Dividend of Community Engagement in Higher Education

Teaching and learning, research, and community engagement are recognised pillars of scholarship in higher education. However, graduate employability has also emerged (amongst others) as a further strategic policy priority in higher education in response to widening skills gaps and rising graduate unemployment. In this milieu, higher education is coming under pressure to ensure that graduates are relevant to the workplace and prepared for it. In line with UNESCO’s framing of higher education as a public good and a driver of sustainable development, this paper examines the relevance of Community Engagement (CE) as a lever enhancing graduate employability. The study builds on established principles from four conceptual frameworks: human capital theory, social capital theory, motivation-based theory, and signalling theory, which emphasise human capital development through (engaged) learning. Using a triangulated research design, the study examines national and global labour market trends, survey data from 97 academic staff, and qualitative insights from 11 senior industry professionals across Business, Information Technology, Law, Architecture, and Engineering who have a direct role in recruitment. The analysis addresses four policy-relevant objectives: the extent to which employers consider CE in recruitment; its employability value; alignment between academic and employer expectations; and the institutional implications for curriculum and programme design. The findings explore the alignment between academics’ opinions of CE relevance and employers’ perceptions of employability. While academics held strong views on the significance of CE for graduateness, this view was not shared by industry respondents interviewed. Employers, however, confirmed a significant secondary value of CE. Higher education institutions globally, and South African higher education institutions specifically, are mandated by global and local policy imperatives to advance CE. If employers continue not to recognise it in recruitment, the employability return on this mandate diminishes, weakening incentives for students to participate meaningfully in CE projects. The paper concludes with a commentary on the limitations that arise when employers omit to consider CE, for example, by failing to detect non-technical competencies such as leadership, communication, and teamwork, and by missing signals of prosocial motivation and organisational potential.