Learning beyond the curriculum: Academics' perspectives on ICT student employability skills

Abstract

The employability of Australian ICT graduates is declining, with a large number of employers claiming they were unable to find applicants with the right mix of technical and communication skills. Recently, the Australian Federal Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) set employability as a priority strategic area for Australian graduates and funded three projects around this theme. In one of these OLT projects, we set out to explain the gap between employer, graduate, academic and professional body in their expectations of employability skills in graduates. As part of this project, we developed and published an employability framework [Jollands 2015, Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007], which helped to identify and highlight some good practices. This paper presents the ICT academics expectations around the development of employability skills in their prospective graduates. This research entailed focus groups and interviews with academics who were asked how they were developing employability skills in their students, as well as what they were doing to maintain their own knowledge and skill currency. This can be compared with student perspectives, as well as with the attitudes of employers who were previously invited to explain what they look for when recruiting ICT graduates. We invited academics who deal with industry projects to a round table meeting and asked them about what do academics do to develop students' employability skills? In this paper we present the responses of academics to these questions and discuss them in relation to what students have already said, and employers are expecting. We present our recommendations on how to engage academics of ICT more with issues of student employability. We discuss implications and recommendations for redesigning curriculum with a student employability centred approach, in line with the best practice identified from the OLT project and the entrepreneurial approach of academics from another discipline.