Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Vol. 7, No. 2, May 2019 Part III _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 67 P-ISSN 2350-7756 | E-ISSN 2350-8442 | www.apjmr.com Tracking the Employment and Employability Characteristics of the Graduates of the College of Teacher Education Marvin S. Daguplo 1 , Pritzel Lee G. Capili 2 , April Rose C. Estrella 3 , Abegail L. Bano 4 College of Teacher Education, Southern Leyte State University, Philippines 1 daguplosdv@yahoo.com, 2 leeguasa1972@gmail.com Date Received: October 4, 2018; Date Revised: May 10, 2019 Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol. 7 No.2, Part III, 67-74 May 2019 P-ISSN 2350-7756 E-ISSN 2350-8442 www.apjmr.com CHED Recognized Journal ASEAN Citation Index Abstract - Education is the basic response to challenges of the socio-economic status of a nation. The higher education, particularly, is tasked to develop human resources that will become a productive and relevantly employed member of the society. One of the important metrics in the implementation of the quality and relevant education is the realization of the graduates of the program in attaining their professional goals. Anchored on the concept that tracking system is a vital basis of information to determine the status of graduates of academic programs, this descriptive study aims at specifying the profile of the graduates of a Teacher Education Institution in their current employment and earned employability skills. Through the use of an institutionally crafted instrument adapted from the Commission on Higher Education, a total of 178 graduates from 2009 to 2017 identified via criterion-referenced purposive sampling positively responded to the survey instrument. Analysis revealed that the strategies employed for employment show that advertisement, referrals, and personal connections were the major approach employed by education graduates for employment. This study also unveils two major criteria when applying for a job: (i) Compensation, Opportunity for Development, and Proximity Criterion, and (ii) Time Flexibility and Socio- cultural Criterion. This study concludes that the learning and skills developed in the university were relevant to the present job of the graduates. The curriculum enhanced their problem-solving and research skills, as well as, their communication and information skills. This made them satisfied in their current employment. Keywords: Tracking graduates, education graduates, teacher education, employment criteria, alumni. INTRODUCTION Tertiary education has long been considered as one of the nation’s active and humane machinery to counter poverty and pushes socio-economic upliftment. It develops and cultivate the nation’s manpower for national development and to instill and foster the appropriate and relevant, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to enable each individual to become a productive and relevantly employed member of the society. Investments in education would be considered “wasted” if graduates do not move into the significant social roles that enable them to economically support the government [1]. Executive Order # 83, series of 2012 establishes the Philippine Qualifications Framework, which mandates agency responsibilities like DepEd, CHED, TESDA, PRC, and DOLE to examine, evaluate, and recommend learning standards in basic education, technical skills development, and higher education and in the alignment of licensure examination [2]. One of the important metrics to both assess and improve training programs is the graduates’ achievement and realization of their respective career goals and plans [3]. The International Labor Organization [4] Thesaurus defines a tracking investigation as an evaluation and assessment tool where the “impact on target groups is traced back to specific elements of a project or program so that effective and ineffective project components may be defined.” Further, Schomburg [5] shares that graduate survey results are important for “analysis of the relationship between higher education and work.” Moreover, Millington [6] states that “they provide quantitative structural data on employment and career, the character of work and related competencies, and information on the professional orientation, and experiences of their graduates.” Additionally, data collected from tracking the graduates of various programs of higher education institutions can be a very significant measure of the