Universities in Australia engage with industry to develop creative and current curriculum,
provide networking and mentoring opportunities and enhance students’ employability skills
and their transition into the workforce. Like many Australian universities,
Victoria University
(VU) in Melbourne encourages industry engagement in business curriculum through
accreditation and industry representation on Course Advisory Groups. VU also encourages
the involvement of industry experts in the delivery of the business
curriculum to enhance the
student learning experience.
Apart from
work placement
s and internships
, typical industry
participation in business curriculum involves industry guest speakers, industry representatives
providing feedback to students
on project b
riefs or presentations and students attending field
trips and tours of businesses
. One mandatory unit in VU’s Business degrees,
Professional
Development 3: Leadership and Challenge
(PD3), has multiple points of engagement with
industry over the course of t
he unit.
This
is a multi
-
disciplinary capstone unit that makes
extensive use of industry adjunct facilitators and/or external partners to support students
working on ‘real’ business challenges and projects.
Professional Development 3
is also offered in V
U’s business degrees offshore at the Chinese
University
of
Hong Kong (CU
HK
) and
Sunway University College (Kuala Lumpur and Johor
Bahru). This paper will consider transnational quality issues in the delivery of PD3 in Hong
Kong. It will describe the indust
ry engagement achieved in the first delivery of PD3 in Hong
Kong in 2010. Teaching staff from CUHK and VU will consider the comparability of the
learning experience for VU’s students and evaluate industry engagement in the unit based
both on their own perc
eptions and industry feedback.