Accountability of the Iran’s Universities to the Labor Market from the Perspective of Higher Education Experts

 Accountability is regarded as one of the necessities performance measurement, evaluation, and providing an effective and serving democratic system. Universities were accused of being ineffective in responding to the labor market after the 1990s unemployment wave, particularly among highly-educated individuals. Various dimensions of this issue should be investigated in order to identify and define the problem. This research aimed to offer a conceptual framework for universities' responses to the market.

 This study is a qualitative investigation built on an interpretative paradigm that employs thematic research to evaluate information. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview with 15 higher education experts, and sampling was performed according to the chain sampling and criteria-based method.

 There are four dimensions consisting of 17 components, which include: 1) policy-making, structural, and managerial dimension (8 components); 2) educational, skill, and research aspects (5 components); 3) cultural dimension (2 components); and 4) laws and regulations dimension (2 components).

 Policymakers, particularly higher education planners, should pay special attention to the components of this research to reduce the gap between current and desired situation. The status should be improved in terms of responding to the labor market needs, mainly by reducing unemployment and increasing satisfaction of graduates, building trust between university and the labor market, and increasing university popularity in this regard. The main components are as follows: interaction of universities with the labor market, providing curriculums and offering practical and skill training based on the labor market conditions, paying more attention to designation of university managers who are responsive to the labor market, providing demand-oriented courses and student admission, providing statistics on the state of the labor market, the number of students, and graduates, confronting credentialism and educational inflation, amending the labor market laws and regulations for the recruitment and promotion of faculty members.