Yes. Employability is a key feature of ACAP's courses through the work placement opportunities provided to students.
The employability agenda is central to many of Curtin University's strategies and their marketability. Employability features in policy, long term strategic imperatives, and marketing campaigns. Faculty and School strategic plans also encompass reference to employability. Employability is not perceived as a project but is considered a part of core business and is an imperative feature in Curtin University's activities.
Features in the ECU Strategic Plan 2017-2021; the Student Success Blueprint 2018 -2021; the Curriculum Design Policy and the Work Integrated Learning Policy. The 2018 structure of the Student Life Directorate and the creation of the Student Transition and Employability Team, have confirmed the focus on employability, not as a project but a core business at ECU. These strategic directions and supporting policies ensure a consistent focus on employability across the institution.
Griffith is strongly engaged with and committed to the ongoing development and enhancement of graduate employability. The recent Griffith Graduate Employability Review found that, with regards to the University’s focus on employability:
The findings highlight the fact that employability is considered a key feature of core business across the institution and is not viewed as a project that is funding dependant.
The ICMS vision and purpose positions employability as core business of the institution:
ICMS Vision: Australia's Leader of Career-Focused Education
ICMS Purpose: Educating students for Personal Success in their Professional Life
ICMS' flagship employability program are the WIL Placements (Industry Training), being a compulsory, core component of all UG and PG programs (nine months in the middle of the UG degree and six months at end of PG program).
To manage the WIL Placements, ICMS funds a dedicated WIL Office which includes WIL Manager (1), WIL Placement Facilitators (4), WIL Assessment Facilitator (1) and an Administrator (1). Each year the WIL team will prepare and secure WIL Placements for up 750 UG and PG students.
As a core, compulsory component of all UG and PG programs, the WIL Placements are not viewed as a project which is funding dependent year to year.
The Industry Engagement Discipline has a budget for activity eg. staff, Business development, career fairs, guest speakers. This is seen as core business for the discipline
Employability as an agenda, forms part of our Learning and Teaching Strategic Framework. The working definitions of employability at Macquarie state that it encompasses a range of activities/experiences resulting in positive work and life outcomes for students. Employability outcomes are being achieved holistically through academic and support programming provided by PACE, Faculties and the Careers and Employment Service (predominantly). As employability is captured in strategy and activated by existing teams, it can be considered core business; however, it is not currently explicit in all portfolio structures or supporting frameworks.
A curriculum transformation process is currently under way at Macquarie, and while there is not an explicit question in course submissions that asked about employability, Faculty teams have put a great deal of work into articulating course learning outcomes with some reference to employability. For example, in the Bachelor of Human Sciences generalist degree, a course leadership team met at least once a month over a six-month period and student outcomes were discussed at every meeting. Major learning outcomes have been carefully to course learning outcomes and convenors are now also undertaking mapping at the unit level to ensure clear articulation between learning outcomes and unit design and assessment.
The challenge here for Macquarie is that the indicators for this benchmarking project assume a coordinated institutional approach and we currently have a distributed approach with respect to embedding employability in curriculum. Plans to formulate an institution-wide Employability Framework, and the potential adoption of practice-based learning as the signature pedagogy of the University, will provide an opportunity to truly embed employability in course design.
Employability is a key feature of SAE's unique selling point and is therefore deeply embedded, and in some ways central to the Institute's programs. This is most evident in the Institute's Learning and Teaching Policy but is detailed in many other Institutional documents.
Swinburne has employability embedded through activities, initiatives and objectives as detailed through the Transforming Learning Higher Education, Learning and Teaching Strategy 2017-2020 (described previously in 1.2 & 1.5). The utilisation of these activities which are embedded through course accreditation processes in all faculties, international, student support services, careers team and professional placements team ensures that employability is not the sole responsibility of one owner, team or viewed as a specific project but a cohesive methodology across the university.
The Professional Placements (as per 1.5) embedded across the undergraduate suite ensures each Faculty is involved in the success of the program and ongoing emerging themes resulting from student surveys completed by the students as part of their participation. In this example the placements intersect through faculties, professional placement team and student engagement to complete the process.
The Swinburne Emerging Leaders Program is open to all students both on-campus and online, it is also available to students attending at our Sarawak campus (Malaysia). The program is coordinated by the Careers and Employability team (central) where students undertake career development units which come from the faculties and student engagement services. The students complete a mandatory Career development module and then three other leadership categories whilst identifying how their outside curriculum activities provide the valuable skills to enhance their chances in the highly competitive employment market.
Core funding is provided for the careers service, WIL courses and alumni mentoring activities.
Through the articulation of goals around employability, (Goal 1 Game Changing Graduates) the UQ Student Strategy has substantially raised the profile of employability at UQ from a project, to a systemic approach and culture change that contributes to the effectiveness and reputation of the institution. The DVC(A) has made Student Strategy funding available to both Faculties and Central divisions to commence and/or expand employability initiatives. This funding is for 3 years with the explicit intention that these activities/appointments are to become business as usual from 2021.
USC has an institutional wide approach to Employability as is referenced throughout key strategic documents and action plans and from 2019 an institutional strategy.
Employability has been embedded into curriculum and work integrated learning policies. We have been working through the graduate attributes since 2009 and have advanced our understandings of how these attributes work in disciplines and how they help to make meaning and connect students to the expectations of future employers, pursuit of higher levels of education and overall participation in the community as a whole. Further, scholarship of learning and teaching has been encouraged through funded internal exploratory and commissioned grants and OLT/DET grants targeted at the strategic priority of employability.
USC designs, considers and approaches curriculum through the lens of four design principles: learning-centred, constructively-aligned, standards based and career and future focused. In addition to having our policy, procedures and curriculum work employability focussed, we are also building inter-institutional collaborations between academics, our teaching and learning support centre and our Careers team in Student Services and Engagement. We are endeavouring to share the same language and collaborate across the student life cycle in mutually supporting and transparent ways.
Evidence:
3.3a See 1.3a-1.3e Evidence
3.3b Summary of Learning and Teaching Exploratory and Commissioned Employability grants
3.3c Exploratory Grant 2017 (Increasing Graduate Employability and Developing Social Media Proficiency)
C&E team includes an:
Intention to develop (1 x FTE) Industry Coordinator for HDR students in 2019
WIL and employability is an integral element of the University's Degrees of Difference curriculum transformation program, which places a strong emphasis on the provision of authentic learning, a curriculum situated in the realities of work and society and in the incorporation of work integrated and experiential learning.
Yes. UWA views WIL as core business, which is demonstrated by its budget outline to fund WIL placement officers out of the operation budget for the Education Portfolio for 2019 (previously funded out of strategic funds). The University has also recently signed a contract with CCIWA to fund 500 placements. It is also engaging the services of an external consultant to benchmark placement process for WIL units (non-compulsory) against other universities, and also streamline the existing process.
VU's Employability Strategy has a 3-year time frame and program funding reflects this. However, there are many other elements of employability that are seen as core business activities.
a. WIL VU's WIL Framework seeks to create and sustain an institutional approach to providing safe, authentic, accessible and inclusive WIL that contributes to student employability(footnote). The key ways of ensuring this are: Early engagement and preparation for WIL; Building student skills and evidence of capacity through authentic, scaffolded curricula WIL; Broadening our WIL offerings to support engagement of all students
b. Learning Hubs - In 2018 VU delivered on its commitment to transform academic learning through the Learning Hubs concept. Learning Hubs provide a single space within a campus for students to access a range of activities, advice and information to guide their studies and future aspirations. Within the Learning Hubs are dedicated maths, library and research, writing, digital literacy and careers advisors to guide students and graduates with dedicated, discipline specific, as well as generic workshops, drop-ins and resources. The Learning Hubs will also be staffed by peer mentors allowing more experienced students to support student transition and learning.
c. Students as Staff (SaS) - There are a range of work areas where students are employed throughout the university - Centre for Student Success, Marketing, Library, L&T to name a few. These opportunities serve to give students valuable work experience, develop work and social skills, allow students to build meaningful networks with staff and other students.
d. Entrepreneurship VU is prioritising entrepreneurship above, across and within the curriculum as part of VU's unique blend of offering. The Centre for Student Success (CSS) works with the university's Entrepreneurs in Residence to enhance existing units of study or build new units and study sequences that allow students to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. The Entrepreneurs in Residence in collaboration with the Learning Hubs staff also deliver a range of workshops and drop in services to facilitate student access to Entrepreneurial learning beyond their course.
The new course design policy embeds as one of its key principles employability into all curricula. Thus with every new course or review of a course this will be occur as a matter of practice. The University provides 50% of the total budget for Employability as continual operating funds, and there is ongoing. The additional 50% is provided year on year through projects and initiatives of a limited life span.
It is a key feature of what the University does, however, because it is managed in a decentralised way, it is difficult to form a complete picture of how it is evolving.
There are a number of individuals and teams that working in this area. This includes Career Services, Dean Academic, Student Services, and Colleges. There are strands that come from the Student Success strategy, and parts that come from the need to have practical experiences within academic programmes. None of these things are funding dependent, they happen as a business as usual activity. However, there are no clear/visible connections happening between all the moving parts within the University.
Employability is not currently core business across the institution, but it is moving towards this. It is currently seen as important business by many academic staff and disciplines, and is particularly embedded in the professionally accredited courses, but it is not made an explicit focus of core business across the whole university. It is core business for central stand-alone teams or initiatives such as the Careers Service, WIL and Career Learning Spine. There are opportunities for the Career Learning Spine to delegate wider responsibility to focus on employability particularly at a discipline level.
A strong focus on employability in the University's 2017-2027 Strategic Plan and plans for the development of an institutional employability strategy mean that there is a good opportunity to improve in this area.