Work-integrated Learning (WIL) can be a vehicle for the development of students’ work-ready skills. This paper presents the views of undergraduate business students and academics about the role and perceived importance of work-ready skills in the business curriculum and the perceived role of WIL activities in enabling the development of work-ready skills. A total of 50 business students and 24 academics from a number of faculties across the university participated. While students and academics both agree that a combination of on and off campus WIL activities are most effective for developing work-ready skills, students and academics hold different views to the importance of work-ready skills in the curriculum and the importance of including specific skills such as project planning. These findings have implications for the development of work-ready skills and embedding both WIL and non-WIL activities in undergraduate courses for business school educators and university policy makers.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	work-ready skills, work-integrated learning, business education, graduate skills, work-based learning
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Curriculum and pedagogy
Research Field:	Economics, business and management curriculum and pedagogy
Objective Division:	Education and Training
Objective Group:	Schools and learning environments
Objective Field:	Policies and development
UTAS Author:	McManus, L (Professor Lisa McManus)
ID Code:	133489
Year Published:	2019
Web of Science® Times Cited:	6
Deposited By:	TSBE
Deposited On:	2019-06-28
Last Modified:	2020-02-26
Downloads:	0