The framing of employability policy and the design of work-integrated-learning curriculum

Introduction

Higher education is changing in response to a dynamic world of work that is placing new demands on the agility and resilience of graduates (Dacre Pool et al., 2019). Higher education is being driven toward models that are more responsive to the needs of industry and business in preparing ‘work ready’ graduates who are highly employable.Employability (and employment) are used as measures of success for universities and higher education (Osborne & Grant-Smith, 2017), with employment outcomes, for example, being tied to performance funding of Australian universities by the federal government (Tehan, 2019). This shift in role and purpose are driving new pedagogies and curriculum priorities. For the last decade,there has been a rise in the predominance of work-integrated learning
(WIL) as a pedagogical and curriculum response toenhance graduate employability and employment outcomes. There is emergingevidence of connections between student experiences of WIL and   employabilityoutcomes, and consequently universities are adopting WIL as an approach toensuring work ready’ graduates (Jackson, 2013, 2015). However, theseconnections are not a simple given, but a consequence of purposeful design andintentional policy directions. Utilizing a case study from the QueenslandUniversity of Technology (QUT), the relationships between career, language and learningeducators, and curriculum and learning designers have been reimagined. Thischapter aims to explore the connections between the policy and practiceframings of employability and pedagogical and curriculum designs of WIL.