Employment status of graduates: analysis of bachelor's degrees in English teaching for primary and secondary education at the National University of Costa Rica

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to disseminate the results obtained from the study on the employment situation of graduates in the 2018-2019 period from the Bachelor's degree programs in English Teaching for Primary and Secondary Education at the National University, Omar Dengo Campus. This was carried out by the English Teaching Graduates Project (PEEI). The PEEI research is non-experimental, cross-sectional in design, and descriptive in scope. It involved 73 participants, who were sent a questionnaire via the LimeSurvey platform. The questionnaire contained 44 questions covering different aspects of employment, postgraduate studies, and continuing education. However, for this article, only the main indicators related to their employment status were considered. The study seeks to measure the main indicators of labor market integration, the areas of work in which graduates are employed, and the quality of the jobs they access. Therefore, a verification of members was conducted in a focus group. Among the main results, it stands out that the employment indicators are satisfactory, since 93.2% are working and, of this, 85.3% do so full-time. Most of the population surveyed is working in the private sector, both in education and in other sectors of the country's productive apparatus. In addition, the quality of employment is considerable, as 97% of the participants believe that their career preparation allows them to perform satisfactorily in their profession.