Wednesday 14 August 2024 – The Australia China Business Council was proud to host the 16th annual Australia-China Education Forum on the topic of enhancing employability: adapting academic, policy, and support systems to global job market demands in Melbourne with the generous support of University of Melbourne, Global Business College of Australia and ICG Group.
This forum served as a perfect reminder on Victoria’s robust academic reputation, attracting over 170,000 international students, with approximately 30% hailing from China. Despite this, many students face challenges with employability due to rapidly evolving global work dynamics that render curricula outdated.
The Hon Phil Honeywood, CEO of International Education Association of Australia, presented a keynote presentation focusing on other country’s challenges to advancing their international student intake, the need to do a lot more to have international students into the schooling system – not just higher education and the good, the bad, and the ugly of Australia’s international student system.
Mr Fang Xinwen, the Consul-General of the PRC in Melbourne addressed the audience to offer insight into the Chinese perspective of the Australian education system, focusing on the economic impacts it has on both countries; an advancement in domestic and foreign markets in Australia and China, promoting each other to create new advantages in an open economy.
Our first panel, moderated by Prof Colin Clark on the topic ‘What employers are looking for in new graduates and how well is this being provided’ was joined by Cr Nicholas Reece, Ms Elodie Journet, Mr Daniel Purchas and Prof Edward Buckingham. Key discussion points on this panel were the importance of retaining students post-study in Australia, with 90% of students returning home to China, and how we can educate international students on transferrable skills that they take with them back to China, both for the students and for the employers’ benefit.
The second panel discussion, moderated by Dr Celina Yu, on the topic ‘skills and student employability’, was joined by The Hon Phil Honeywood, Ms Fiona Letos and Mr Richard Lisle. A focus for the panellists was the soft skills that add to workplace culture in comparison to just technical skills, such as confidence, networking skills, intercultural competency. It was also discussed that changing learning environments and strategies can help shape these skills into future employability and to harness entreprenurial spirit that international students may have.
The third and final discussion was moderated by Ms Jennifer Yuan on the topic ‘enhancing student experiences in a changing and dynamic global work environment’ and was joined by panellists Ms Reshmee Gunesh, Dr Catherine Lou, Ms Jodie Scoble and Prof Edward Buckingham. The importance of immersing yourself into local culture as an international student was paramount in this discussion, to make the most of all the opportunities students have to fit into a culture and thus enhance their future employability opportunities.
The event concluded with a light lunch and networking opportunities for all attendees. We sincerely thank all our presenters for giving us their time and sharing their expertise at this our 16th ACBC Victoria Australia China Education Forum.
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