Background-Indonesian state maritime universities face persistent questions about whether institutional education policies adequately shape the career readiness of graduates entering the shipping transportation industry. Objectives-This study examines how three policy domains — teaching professionalism, curriculum quality, and leadership effectiveness — are understood by stakeholders to shape alumni career outcomes across eight Indonesian state maritime universities. Method-A multi-site qualitative policy inquiry was conducted with 75 purposively selected participants from five stakeholder groups. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and institutional document analysis, and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Cohen's kappa = 0.78). Results-Teaching professionalism shaped career readiness through two pathways: competency development and professional socialisation. Curriculum quality influenced outcomes primarily through competency formation, with industry alignment and learning outcome clarity as critical inputs. Leadership effectiveness operated as a contextual enabler rather than a direct career determinant. Industry executives consistently assigned lower effectiveness ratings than all other stakeholder groups across all three domains. Conclusions-Systemic interdependence among the three policy domains argues for integrated, rather than isolated, reform strategies addressing teaching quality, curriculum responsiveness, and leadership governance simultaneously.
Wibowo et al. (Fri,) studied this question.