Internationalising Employability Skills in Business Graduates: International Perspectives

Internationalising the Curriculum assumes a different focus depending on the educational\ud institution, its national and regional context as well as the cultural and linguistic diversity of\ud students and staff. While conversations about internationalised curriculum often end up\ud exclusively focusing on international student exchange and global mobility, a\ud t Victoria\ud University in Melbourne, Australia, an Internationalised Curriculum forms part of the\ud university‟s broader Internationalising agenda: “Making VU an International University”. At a\ud student level, the aim of Internationalising the Curriculum at VU\ud is to encourage international\ud perspectives and intercultural competence in students. This paper‟s purpose is to explore\ud Internationalising the Curriculum in a first year core business subject at VU especially in\ud relation to enhancing the employability of\ud graduate global citizens who anticipate working in\ud a global community. Using VU‟s Toolkit for Internationalising the Curriculum, the business\ud unit Professional Development 1: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving (PD1) is examined\ud to illustrate the range o\ud f teaching approaches that have been adopted to develop students‟\ud global awareness and to hone their intercultural communication skills especially when\ud working in culturally diverse teams. Given that student cohorts on\ud -\ud and offshore are\ud considerably differ\ud ent in terms of their cultural composition and the inherent diversity of each\ud cohort, this paper compares student responses to the teaching methods, the unit‟s purpose\ud and the relevance of Australian employability skills in Malaysia and Hong Kong.\ud Exampl\ud es\ud of student assessment, comments offered in student evaluations of the unit as well as\ud responses from two\ud focus group of PD 1 students at different sites of delivery are provided to\ud demonstrate student views about the significance of “the cultural stuff”\ud in this subject and its\ud r\ud elevance to their employability\ud and lives. ---Australian International Education Conferenc