The inherent requirements for each course include information about employability of graduates. The ACAP Graduate Attributes are incorporated into the design of each ACAP course. Course Learning Outcomes and Unit Learning Outcomes within each course and unit (subject) respectively scaffold to the ACAP Graduate Attributes so as to assure learning and attainment of the Attributes.
Definition: ˜A set of achievements, understandings and personal attributes that make individuals more likely to gain employment and to be successful in their chosen occupations from Knight, P. & Yorke M., (2006). Employability: judging and communicating achievements, in M. Yorke (Ed.), Learning and Employability Series 1. York, United Kingdom: The Higher Education Academy, p. 5.
This definition is stated in the ECU Student Success Blueprint 2018 - 2021, Priority 5.
Griffith’s key strategic planning documents refer to employability as an important goal of Griffith’s approach to education. In Griffith’s Academic Plan 2017-2020, employability is stated as a specific goal in Griffith’s ongoing endeavour to provide students with a remarkable student experience that prepares them for life after university: “Goal 1. Engaged and relevant. Enhance student employability through industry-engaged programs that are relevant to students’ future career ambitions. • Employability in the curriculum. In the rapidly changing future world of work, resilience, flexibility, creativity, digital literacy and entrepreneurship are likely to be the key characteristics of graduates who will be able to adapt and thrive in increasingly globalised workplaces. As well as a firm foundation in the knowledge of their chosen discipline, our academic programs need to give students the opportunity to develop these attributes. This means that we need to think differently about how and what we teach our students and more actively engage with industry, including through Industry Advisory Boards, to understand what they expect from our graduates. As part of the Griffith 2020 agenda, Graduate Attributes and course and program learning outcomes have been redesigned to reflect the importance of ensuring graduate success.
In addition to conventional measures of academic achievement such as assessment results and grade point average, from 2017, students will have access to an ePortfolio (PebblePad). This will allow students to maintain a personal record of achievement of graduate attributes, including through extracurricular activities such as part-time employment, volunteering and sport participation. Griffith will develop a credentialing framework to formally recognise students’ acquisition of its Graduate Attributes through the ePortfolio. Increasingly, academic programs are moving away from purely didactic teaching towards career-relevant active learning that engages students in group projects, problem-based learning and other activities. Most undergraduate programs now include a capstone experience, such as a research project, work placement, internship, or professional practice, which serves as a transition from study to the workplace. Many students also have the opportunity for an international exchange or study tour. Recognising the importance of preparing students to work in a digitally enabled environment, Library and Learning Services will collaborate with the Academic Groups to facilitate the embedding of digital literacy skills in academic programs. Assessment will focus on “authentic” tasks that reflect those students will encounter in the workplace, rather than simply examining students’ knowledge recall. This shift will be critical in preparing students for their professional life. • Innovation and entrepreneurship. More than ever, students are expecting their university experience to prepare them well to enter the workforce; however, there are also a significant number of students who aspire to be entrepreneurs, who are looking to a university education to give them the skills to be self-employed innovators. Others require the enterprise skills to address challenges and opportunities within a professional workplace. Griffith is responding to this imperative through a series of initiatives which will place us at the forefront of the innovation agenda. The majority of undergraduate students will be able to undertake either an elective or a major that will give them the skills to be innovative entrepreneurs. Platforms such as “Lean Launchpad” will be adopted to structure a capstone-type experience that focusses on developing students’ entrepreneurial skills in cross-disciplinary teams. Extracurricular opportunities such as the “Three Day Start-Up” will be offered to students who wish to extend their experience. • Careers support. For many students, access to part-time employment while studying is a necessity. Griffith’s Careers and Employment Service (C&ES) has managed the successful CareerBoard for 19 years and over that time has posted 46,000 job vacancies and currently has more than 16,000 registered, active potential employers. In 2016, Griffith became the first Australian University to join Unitemps, an employment service set up by the University of Warwick in the UK to facilitate part-time and casual employment for university students.
By 2019, we aim to place 1,000 students per annum in employment through Griffith Unitemps. CES runs a very popular and effective advisory service for students seeking information about future career directions and courses they should study in order to be able to fulfil their career goals. Currently, this service is limited largely to face-to-face counselling, which precludes many students, and is not scalable. Over the next 1–2 years CES will transition to a more proactive service, collaborating with Academic Groups to better embed employability skills in academic programs, and providing richer data and information about career options and the skills employers are seeking in accessible, online formats. The highly successful industry mentoring program which has run since 1994 is struggling to cope with demand for mentors. From 2017, this program will expand to include an online mentoring program, ensuring many more students have the opportunity to learn from someone (including our alumni) already working in the profession or industry they aspire to join.” (pp.10-11) While employability is not specifically defined in Griffith’s Strategic Plan 2018-2019, it is referenced as follows: “The University is committed to enhancing student employability through industry-engaged programs that are relevant to students’ future career ambitions. In the rapidly changing future world of work, attributes of resilience, flexibility, creativity, digital literacy and entrepreneurship are likely to be the key characteristics of graduates who will be able to adapt and thrive in increasingly globalised workplaces. As well as a firm foundation in the knowledge of their chosen discipline, our academic programs will give students the opportunity to develop these attributes. More than ever, students are expecting their university experience to prepare them well to enter the workforce. Increasingly, a significant proportion of students aspire to be entrepreneurs, and are looking to a university education to give them the skills to be self-employed innovators. Others will require enterprise skills to address the challenges and opportunities significantly disrupting professional workplaces.” (p.10) Employability is defined in Griffith’s Graduate Employability Review. The Review was undertaken this year (2018) to review Griffith’s approaches to fostering the employability of its students in an effort to improve Griffith’s approach and initiatives in this area. In the Griffith Graduate Employability Review 2018, employability is defined as: “Most students and educators think of graduate employability as being more than ‘getting a job’. For many, employability is concerned with professional readiness. At its broadest sense, graduate employability can be thought of as both lifelong and life-wide: the ongoing capacity to live and work productively and meaningfully in an increasingly dynamic and complex society. As such, it encompasses ‘objective’ work outcomes and contributions, subjective notions of graduate success, and also moves beyond work to ideas of wider social value through civic engagement. An effective university graduate employability strategy must address both ‘short term outcomes’ and ‘lifelong-life-wide’ senses.” (p.7)
The University of Queensland Student Strategy White Paper (2016) describes employability at UQ as: "Skill sets, understandings and personal attributes that make graduates more likely to attain lifelong employment success, as distinct from employment (i.e. getting a job). Student employability at UQ is predicated on experiential learning plus reflection that translates learning experiences into employability outcomes. Both curricular and extra-curricular extension opportunities across the university are essential to UQ's model of employability."
This statement was developed from work that was undertaken in 2014/2015 to create an institutional approach to employability, including a framework that could be applied across a comprehensive institution.
At this time a vision statement for employability at UQ was also created to describe the employability characteristics of a UQ graduate.
"The University of Queensland will develop highly sought after graduates who have engaged in, and reflected on, a range of opportunities to realise their employability. By drawing on their accumulated knowledge, competencies and attributes they will have impact in organisations, create enterprising opportunities for themselves and others, and effect positive change throughout all stages of their careers."
The UQ understanding of, and approach to, employability development is based on the most widely-accepted definition of employability by Yorke, which describes employability as a set of achievements , skills, understandings and personal attributes that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy (Yorke 2004).
In the last year, the UQ definition of employability has been further refined and is currently:
"Employability is a set of achievements , skills, understandings and personal attributes that make graduates more likely to attain lifelong employment success, have impact in organisations, create enterprising opportunities for themselves and others, and effect positive change throughout all stages of their careers to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community, and the economy". (adapted from Yorke, 2006).
UQ takes a holistic approach to the development of these skills, understandings, and personal attributes, recognising that they can be developed not only within the curriculum, but also beyond the curriculum. The focus is on experiential learning, with a recognition that scaffolded learning can assist students to make meaning from their experiences. Within the curriculum, learning outcomes and assessment tasks help frame the learning process: outside the curriculum, UQ developed a SEAL self reflective methodology to assist students to undertake a similar learning process.
Yes. The following statement is included in the SAE Program Statements.
To support graduates, SAE's programs not only develop Knowledge (K), Skills (S) and Application of Knowledge and Skills (AKS) but also develop the Behavioural (B) traits of students in line with the institute's Transferable Skills Framework (Figure 1). The addition of Behaviours to the traditional combination of A, K and AKS, as specified in the Australian Qualifications Framework, is based on a wider body of research into assessing professional experience, but particularly the work of Van der Heijden (1999 & 2002), and forms SAE's definition of employability within curriculum design and delivery.
In 2015, Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) established a Graduate Employability Taskforce whose role was to provide direction to the University on the development, implementation and review of the Graduate Employment Strategy. The SUT Graduate Employability Strategy defined employability as equipping Swinburne graduates with the skills, capabilities, experiences and attributes which will maximise their potential of securing an employment outcome. Over time the Graduate Employment Strategy has been further expanded and developed through intensive consultation, engagement and research and in 2017 was relaunched as the Transforming Learning Higher Education, Learning & Teaching Strategy 2017-2020 which links to the 2025 Swinburne Vision and Strategy. In 2017, Swinburne deliverables incorporated the development of an Integrated Employability program through a consultation process, including:
A model that integrated professional and global experiences, entrepreneurship and business creation and career development into the curricula;
A scalable operational model for Work Integrated Learning that extends the Swinburne Advantage to broader cohorts of students, including international students and postgraduate students.
One of the key pillars of the 2025 Swinburne Vision and Strategy is Future-Ready Learners, who are confident and enterprising learners who continue to create social and economic impact. The Transforming Learning Higher Education, Learning & Teaching Strategy has an objective, to lead in employability and business creation by implementing an integrated employability program and implementing a course design and curriculum development framework.
Employability is defined as a set of achievements, skills, understandings and personal attributes that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. (Yorke, M. and Knight, P.T. (2004), Embedding Employability into the Curriculum, Higher Education Academy, York.)
The University's Employability Strategy (2017-2019) defines employability as:
The acquisition of skills, attributes and capacities that allow graduates to build and create successful working lives and meaningful professional identities as they evolve within shifting employment contexts throughout their careers.
The VU forged definition aims to capture much of what has been written previously about graduate employability in Higher Education whilst also recognising that employment contexts are rapidly shifting requiring graduates to have the ability to work across industries, organisations and institutions not yet conceptualised and to negotiate what will be predominantly non-linear career paths. The definition seeks to capture the dynamic nature of work, the development of relevant and transferable skill sets and the development of an evolving professional identity.
The inherent requirements for each course include information about employability of graduates.
The ACAP Graduate Attributes are incorporated into the design of each ACAP course. Course Learning Outcomes and Unit Learning Outcomes within each course and unit (subject) respectively scaffold to the ACAP Graduate Attributes so as to assure learning and attainment of the Attributes.
While the student employability agenda is a high priority for all areas of the university, a confirmed definition of employability is yet to be agreed upon and disseminated across the institution. A working party was established in 2016 specifically to articulate the scope and dimensions of employability at Curtin. The working definition is currently: A Curtin graduate is a lifelong learner with the education and capabilities required for meaningful employment and who has the skills to find, create and sustain work.
The Working Party developed a Curtin Employability / Graduate Outcomes Plan 2017-2019 (See Attachment 1). There is an intention to revive the working party in 2019 to progress agreement on the definition and implement the communication strategy. While the definition remains in contention and has yet to be socialised across the institution and embedded in practice, there is a growing awareness of the importance of employability. However, for greater impact and to facilitate implementation of strategies that enhance employability, a shared understanding of employability is required. The Employability Framework shown in Attachment 1 was developed on the basis of discussions on employability. The Employability framework highlights the key capabilities considered essential to acquiring a Curtin credential. The development of the capabilities are reliant on self-awareness and the ability to reflect. Also pivotal to quality outcomes for students is their personal capacity for adaptability, resilience and commitment.
Yes, but the recently drafted ICMS 'Employability Policy' is currently being finalized via the consultation and governance process. The focus of ICMS to date in this space has been on the provision of Industry Training Placements, which has been undertaken with much success. The Industry Training Program is a nine month, full-time placement 'block' that UG students undertake in the middle of their program before returning to campus to complete their program. PG students undertake a 6 month placement in their final semester. The first steps in strategically approaching employability beyond the Industry Training Program was the recent appointment of a Work Integrated Learning Manager and the alignment of the area under the DVC (Learning and Teaching) in 2018.
There is currently a transition (incl. policy & student portfolio devt) from an Industry Training Placement focus, to Work Integrated Learning which captures all activities and approaches that link theory with application. Approaching this transition from an 'Employability' perspective will assist. 'Employability' defined in the draft ICMS Employability Policy which is currently being circulated for comment.
This is within the WIL framework rather then an employability strategy document
Massey supports the notion that employability is “a complex blend of skill, attitude, experience, motivation and interest, underpinned by the ability to learn and to apply that learning to the challenges that work presents” .Massey also promotes and supports a wider view of employability which addresses not just ‘work’ but is more holistic and encompasses citizenship, service, wealth creation and health and well-being.
SCONUL 2014, “A review of the literature on current practice in the development of employability skills” http://www.sconul.ac.uk/page/employability.
Snowden, C. (2013) President's address to 2013 Members' Annual Conference: the enduring value of universities.http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Pages/PresidentsAddress2013AnnualConference.aspx;
Also, Hinchliffe, G. W. and Jolly, A. (2011), Graduate identity and employability. British Educational Research Journal [online]. 37(4), pp. 563-584.
Lord Young Report (2014), Enterprise for all: the relevance of enterprise in education.
The Massey Careers and Employability Service uses the following definition “...having a set of skills, knowledge, understandings and personal attributes that make a person more likely to choose, secure and retain occupations in which they can be satisfied and successful.”
Dacre Paul, L., & Sewell, P. (2007) The key to employability: developing a practical model of graduate employability. Education + Training 49(4), 277-289. Retrieved from https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.18900!/file/UCLAN-model-of-graduate-employability.pdf
Currently the University has not defined employability in the traditional sense. However, the Employability strategy focuses on the trend, cited in much research in this area, away from a skills and aptitude based approach toward a more holistic understanding of graduate capital. The capital based approach focus on validation, acquisition, and mobilisation of various forms of capital.
The University is also committed to ensuring that it shapes the future employability debate and hence how we would define it. This is carried out in ways which are consistent with the University mission as an anchor institution in the region. We hold Future of Work and Curriculum Transformation Forums to promote discussion between industry and community partners, University staff and students on research-led approaches to future employability. This has contributed to a rethinking of what constitutes employability in a future of work which will be more disrupted and fluid. Consequently, in curriculum development we are increasingly defining what makes a graduate employable in terms of the capabilities and attributes which will enable students to thrive in a disrupted social, environmental and economic future. Western Sydney University graduates will be future thinkers, innovative entrepreneurs and citizen scholars.
At Macquarie, there has been lengthy discussion around the term employability and its definition. Our Learning for the Future: Learning and Teaching Strategic framework (2015-2020) expands on the work of Yorke (2006): As part of our connected approach to curriculum that embeds work and life skills: ‘Employability’ refers to a suite of transferable skills, attributes and capabilities that prepare a graduate for life and work in our fluid, complex global environment. Much more than training for a specific vocation, employability encompasses the capacity to remain employable and to contend with a variety of employment opportunities. It also involves the ability to create and sustain work, suggesting a potential for entrepreneurship and an aptitude for being creative, innovative and self-motivated (p.22).
However, towards the end of 2016 Macquarie’s Professional and Community Engagement (PACE) program and our Career and Employment Service conducted some initial research on campus via focus groups with student mentors and staff to consider the following two definitions of employability:
• Yorke’s definition: Employability means that students acquire the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to secure employment and be successful in their chosen occupations to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. (Yorke, 2006).
• Oliver’s definition: Employability means that students and graduates can discern, acquire, adapt and continually enhance the skills, understandings and personal attributes that make them more likely to find and create meaningful paid and unpaid work that benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. (Oliver, 2015) Informally, Oliver’s definition of employability was preferred as the definition for employability with focus groups noting that it better supported Macquarie’s approaches to employability.
There is no currently agreed definition of employability at an institutional level. However, there is currently a commitment to defining employability at an institutional level. Advancements towards this include the recent establishment of the ‘Curriculum +’ team, which brings together the Work Integrated Learning Team, Careers Service Team and ‘Career Learning Spine’ staff under direction of the Pro Vice Chancellor Education, and plans for the development of an institutional employability strategy to be developed through university-wide consultation. Certain staff and areas at the University do utilise research informed definitions of employability, including the Careers team who endorse the following definition:
“a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy.” Knight and York (2004)
Additionally, at a discipline-level, the Veterinary discipline in the School of Veterinary and Life Sciences adopt the following definition, developed through the VetSet2Go project led by Murdoch University academic, Associate Professor Martin Cake:
“A set of adaptive personal and professional capabilities that enable a veterinarian to gain employment, contribute meaningfully to the profession, and develop a career pathway that achieves satisfaction and success.”
SCU developed a draft Employability Framework through a university-wide collaboration in late 2016. This document adopts Oliver's (2016) definition of employability:
Employability means graduates are capable of identifying, acquiring, adapting and continually enhancing their skills, understandings and personal attributes leading to the creation of more meaningful work.
Due to organisational restructuring, this document has remained in draft format but we are having open conversations among the various portfolios, DVC(Students), DVC(Academic), P (Engagement) and working on developing one. There are multiple ways and processes for how employability is construed, but for the purposes of this report the following HEA definition has been adapted by the Employability Working Group which Southern Cross University established to respond to the HEA initiative:
Employability is a set of skills, understandings, behaviours, attributes and mindsets, intentionally developed to create and sustain meaningful work.
More specifically, Employability is:
Employability is not:
UNSW is working towards a definition and policy on Career Development Learning (early stages) and Work Integrated Learning (currently in final consultation phase)
Under the UNSW Work Integrated Learning Procedure UNSW defines work integrated learning as follows:
Work integrated learning (WIL) at UNSW is defined as the integration of theory with the practice of work within a purposefully designed curriculum. It is offered within an academic framework that is designed on the principle that a work environment is provided for the practical application of learning.
WIL enables students to engage in authentic, purposeful, partnered, and supervised 1 work learning experiences that integrate academic learning with its application in the workplace as part of their program of study. WIL provides the means to do in context rather than developing practical skills alone; it enables students to develop work readiness skills to industry standards and enhances employability. This realises the UNSW 2025 Strategy to enable students to ... obtain a holistic education, securing the real-world practical skills needed for a rapidly evolving workplace.
At UNSW, WIL is:
Embedded in a course where the work learning is the central component and all other activity in the course supports the student's WIL experience, and has an assigned unit of credit value; and/or
A program requirement for those professions that require a minimum level of work experience to receive accreditation.
Work integrated learning will be:
Designed to integrate theory with practice and involve authentic engagement with partner organisations;
Purposefully aligned to program and course learning outcomes;
Undertaken with a partner organisation;
Supervised in a work learning context; and Assessed.
The new USC Strategic Plan 2019-2022 (currently being consulted upon) has a new priority to expand access and pathways into USC and strengthen graduate employability. In addition, a USC Student Employability Strategy 2019-2022 and action plan was endorsed by Academic Board in early November.
Evidence:
1.1.a USC Employability Strategy 2019-2022
A few different areas in the university have definitions supporting their work e.g.
(1) Office of Advancement of Learning and Teaching definition: - a set of achievements, including particular understandings, skills, attributes and dispositions that will make a graduate more likely to secure employment and success in their chosen field (York, 2006)
(2) USQ Qualities of a Graduate Policy USQ graduates will be enable to be employable professional who are confident, self-directed, resourceful, resilient and adaptable to change
It has been found in current USQ student consultation (both undergraduate and post graduate) that the term 'employability' is ambiguous and the term career/career development is more relatable - this information has been derived from student focus groups
OALT definition:
https://intranet.usq.edu.au/sites/oalt/program-support/graduate-learning-outcomes/graduate-employability/SitePages/Home.aspx
USQ Qualities of a Graduate Policy: https://policy.usq.edu.au/documents/13420PL
No but there is a policy and definition for Experiential Learning, Work Integrated Learning (WIL), Placements, and Service Learning.
The definitions are taken from the University Policy on: Courses - Experiential Learning. They are as follows:
The current definition for experiential learning is :
experiential learning refers to those structured learning activities involving a host organisation externally or arrangements organised locally on campus which are undertaken either: for assessment and credit towards a UWA undergraduate/postgraduate coursework course, or for course completion or by higher degree research students as part of a research end-user engagement.
The current definition for Work Integrated Learning is as below:
work integrated learning (WIL) is the term used to describe educational activities that integrate theoretical learning with its application to the workplace. These educational activities should provide a meaningful experience of the workplace application that is intentional, organised and recognised by the institution, in order to secure learning outcomes for the student that are both transferable and applied.
The definition for placements is:
a placement refers to an organised and supervised experiential learning activity that takes place on or off campus as part of the University course requirements, the site of such activity is a placement under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. The placement takes the form of work placements, practical placements, clinical placement, professional placements, internships or practicums
The current definition for service learning is:
service learning refers to community engagement activities that are embedded in units of study, being structured and assessed as formal educational experiences
However the definition for WIL is vague. Therefore, the WIL Strategy Working group is in the process of creating a clearer definition.