Contextualising and integrating into the curriculum the learning and teaching of work-ready professional graduate attributes

Government, employers and professional societies want university graduates who are better prepared for employment. The UTS Work-Ready Project is a curriculum renewal initiative that aims to improve graduates' professional attributes and employability skills. The paper provides an overview of the project's curriculum renewal strategy of 'contextualised by the profession and integrated into the curriculum'. Representatives of professional societies were interviewed for their understandings of the professional attributes required of a contemporary graduate. Eleven key work-ready graduate attributes were identified, with relevant sub-attributes, understandings and skills. These formed a matrix for the development of potential learning activities. The project website gives access to matrices of generic and professionally contextualised work-ready learning activities. Each work-ready activity includes learning and teaching support resources that can be downloaded to enable easy integration into existing subjects. Formative evaluation of the project's website is presented, together with the strategies for integrating and embedding improved work-ready learning into UTS's diverse professional and disciplinary curriculum. © 2010 HERDSA.