Assuring quality in WIL : is the devil in the detail?

A growing body of scholarship suggests that work integrated learning (WIL) is shifting from an emerging concept to an increasingly embedded component of higher education. WIL has reported to influence student learning by explicitly linking the curriculum to employability and employment outcomes, with the prospect of students being more ‘engaged’ and increased local to global competitiveness as students transition into the workplace. As WIL becomes mainstream and universities encounter its complexities, there is a need to understand what quality and standards enable good outcomes. Once a decision is made to implement WIL, ‘gaps’ can be discovered – particularly those which affect the quality of a program. These include curriculum standards aimed at valuable learning and experience across disciplines; systems, policies and procedures for partnership management, risk and legal considerations; the promotion of inclusive WIL; and alignment of the institution, industry and community needs. A number of important resources provide guidance on what constitutes quality WIL. Complementary to these are recent national recommendations (e.g. TEQSA National Standards for WIL, National WIL Statement). Yet, how might WIL specialists apply these, given the variations that exist between disciplines, professional accreditation requirements, the purposes driving WIL, the approaches taken, and the diverse institutional and individual contexts