Graduate employment is the emerging image-issue for universities. Rebekha Sharkie pointed to it when announcing the Nick Xenophon Team would block the government’s higher education package. Astute universities are throwing resources at teaching employment skills, internships and placement programme. And extra effort is essential to help international students, who really do make an investment in education they need to pay a dividend. Which makes the case for going Glocal.

The Innovative Research Universities excellent case studies  resource National Innovation Case Study Collection provides a Flinders University report on Glocal, created at Malmo University in Sweden. “International programs face challenges in providing affordable work-placements that can effectively develop students’ soft skills and life experience, as well as foster global employability skill sets appropriate to students’ intended careers in an international context,”

Malmo, partnering with Swinburne University, created a six-hour simulation replicating an international workplace where teams of students “collaborate across digital domains, challenging online and on-campus students to grapple with digital communication technologies and time differences while maintaining active collaboration.”