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LITE director helps pen new book on graduate employability in Australia

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LITE DIRECTOR Dr Raphael Hallett has contributed to a new book on how Australian universities are preparing their students for the challenges of global employment in the 21st century.

The book: 'Education for Employability: Learning for Future Possibilities', has been written by leading academics in Australia and will address a number of questions around how well university education prepares students for employment.

Dr Hallett, director at the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE), is co-authoring his chapter on “Language of Employability”, with Doug Cole, Head of Student Success at the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

Together they will discuss the language of employability as it relates to the language of learning, and look at how higher education institutions can provide opportunities for students to understand better how scholarly development and employability fit together.

Dr Hallett says:

The rhetoric of employability is contentious and in urgent need of a refresh. It's time to connect it to the language of academic development and civic engagement: in other words, to make it more engaging for our students.

The book, aimed at international contexts of higher education debate, will be published by Sense-Brill in 2018.

Doug Cole, who is also a LITE Board member, says: "It’s a great chance to collaborate and to be able to share practice between the UK and Australia. Employability is a vital aspect of education at institutions around the world, and high on the agenda with a range of stakeholders – not least of course with students themselves."

Co-editor Professor Joy Higgs, Director, Education For Practice Institute, Division of Student Learning at Charles Sturt University, says: "With a number of leading researchers, scholars and educators internationally, the book, to be released next year, addresses such questions as the following:  How well are we actually preparing graduates for the changing demands of employability across their working lives? For many students their goal is to make their own jobs; what are the implications of this for education? We look forward to providing further information when the book is due for release."