Kumela Gudeta (PhD)Samuel Atalel2024-06-252024-06-252022-05https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/3208The objective of this study was to assess the employment status of TVET graduates in Addis Ababa and how the employers see the strengths and weaknesses on the program in terms of Knowledge, Skill and Attitude. Education in general and TVET education specifically, is one of the pathways towards a better urban decent life that encompasses the acquisition of important tools and competencies to demonstrate in the world of work. For many years, the role played by TVET has been overlooked due to mainly attitudinal and design of the system. Nowadays it‟s becoming more of related with development agenda comprised with employment opportunity, livelihood improvement and source of manufacturing industries. A sample of 257 graduates, 28 employing companies, 15 trainers‟ and 4 key informants were taken for the study. Primary data was collected by questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Entoto and Misrak Polytechnic Colleges are the prominent TVET institutes in Addis Ababa and in Ethiopia at large. They have the highest enrollment and graduating centers with frequent work relationships with employers/industries. Qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis were used in this study. The interview responses obtained from the management bodies and interviews were analyzed qualitatively. Quantitative data collected was analyzed using SPSS expressed in frequencies and percentages and presented using tables and figures. According to the findings of this study 68.5% got employed mainly by private companies (48%). Also 70% of graduates employed in private sector followed by the government (14.8%). With 60% of employers are on the sector of manufacturing sector over 60% of them got knowledge, skill and attitude of graduates above good and very good. Also the research indicated that there are no huge gaps in those areas, the result of the study point out that the skills delivered by the colleges are not essentially and expectation based on the standard of the employers. 46.4% and 28.6% of employers believe that the competency of graduates is satisfactory and very satisfactory. But there are also 21.4% of companies who believe their competency is unsatisfactory. This creates, employers indicated, another resource wastage incurred by the employers to make graduates „complete‟. Also the study indicates that the core competency of trainee‟s is initially questioned during the cooperative training or internship period by which the trainees get more practical training inside the industries.enTVETEmploymentUnemploymentEducationCompetencyThesis