Preparing Graduates with Digital Literacy Skills Toward Fulfilling Employability Need in 4IR Era: A Review

This systematic review aims to review and synthesize employer expectations towards digital skills among graduates, steps, and measurements taken by higher education institutions to prepare students and harness motivation among students to make themselves competitive and marketable toward fulfilling employability needs in 4IR era. It was designed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Articles published between January 2016 and 2020 were sought from three electronic databases: Science Direct, Scopus, and Web of Science. Additional items gain from the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia repository are also considered to be reviewed. All papers were reviewed, and the quality assessment was performed. Twenty articles were finally selected. Data were extracted, organized, and analyzed using a narrative synthesis. The review identified three overarching themes: (1) Employer perspectives on their expectation from young graduates. (2) Institutions’ views on how they should prepare their students for the 4IR era. (3) Students’ perspectives on how they could motivate themselves. The systematic review provides insightful information on the required digital literacy skills among young graduates, expectations of the industry player, and how digital literacies can be developed in the institutions.