Arab Educational Information Network

The aim of this study is to identify the degree of acquisition of the professional skills required for the labor market by students of computer networks and computer programming and information systems, as well as to determine the significance of the differences between the students in the two programs in terms of the average degree of their acquisition of these skills, in addition to the students' opinions on the pros and cons of the programs’ development. The study found that the average degree of female students acquiring the professional skills required for the labor market in both programs is high. There were no differences between the students of the two programs in the degree to which they acquired these skills. The most positive skills mentioned by students in the networking program were: acquisition of computer skills and applications, local networking skills and networking and confidentiality and information security skills. The most common of these advantages in the program of computer programming and information systems were: acquisition of computer skills and applications, learning how to program and create web pages, graphics and games and smart phone applications. In both programs, the students agreed upon that the most negative aspects were: poor maintenance of hardware and software in laboratories and insufficient time for practical applications. Their proposals can be summarized in the following four demands: increasing the hours of practical application, organizing training courses within the college to increase the acquisition of skills, establishing a system of maintenance and modernization of devices in laboratories and introducing modern tablet devices in laboratories. Based on these results, the study recommended strengthening the acquired skills as distinct skills for the college graduates, developing improvement plans for the skills that resulted in weak grades, treating the negative aspects and working on the students' suggestions for improvement. This study should be conducted annually to follow up the implementation of the improvement plans and to develop this study to include other categories, including the views of employers regarding the skills of graduates and the status of employment after one year of graduation. (Published abstract)