Abstract
This study assessed the extent of industry partnership implementation, evaluated students’ workplace and industrywide competencies in flexible internship programs and identified the facilitating and hindering factors affecting internship effectiveness. An intervention program was proposed to strengthen industry–academe collaboration and improve internship outcomes. Descriptive quantitative with purposive sampling was utilized in the study. A total of 108 respondents participated, including school administrators, on-the-job training (OJT) coordinators and industry partners for HEIs offering business administration programs in Metro Manila. The data were collected using a validated researcher-made questionnaire and analyzed using mean and percentage, ANOVA and correlation coefficient. The implementation of industry partnerships for employability skills development was rated with very high extent [4.41]. Collaboration and teamwork ranked highest, followed by work ethics, communication, human resource competence and decision-making and empowerment. Supervised internship performance was rated as excellent with high markings for both workplace and industry-wide competencies. Administrative competence obtained the highest mean, followed by leadership, interpersonal, technical and conceptual competencies. The ANOVA indicated a significant difference only in collaboration and teamwork. In addition, correlation demonstrated strong positive relationships between industry partnership implementation and students’ competencies. Furthermore, facilitating variables in the study were highly encountered, while hindering variables were moderately experienced by the students. Finally, based on the assessment, the proposed intervention program was highly suitable for acceptable and feasible. This illustrates the important collaborative role of industry–academe in improving internship programs, ensuring graduate employability.
Keywords: Employability Skill Development, Flexible Internship Program, Industry-academe Partnership, Workplace Competencies.