Educating Australian Leisure Graduates: Contexts for Developing Generic Skills

Leisure studies graduates seek employment in a highly competitive marketplace. In addition to their degree qualification, graduates need to have a core of generic skills and attributes that are sought by their industry sector employers. As part of a larger study, graduates from Griffith University’s leisure management degree (1997-2000) were surveyed to explore their perceptions of how their generic skills have been develop in three different learning contexts – at university, through university work placements and, in post-graduation employment. It is argued that all three contexts play an important and often complementary part in preparing leisure management graduates with a package of skills that enable them to effectively contribute to the workplace and develop their careers. However, some skills may be better developed in a particular context and in other contexts, improvements might be made in the teaching and learning process. The study findings give strong support for work placements in preparing graduates for employment. Introduction The growth of the leisure industry in Australia suggests a promise of interesting and rewarding careers for leisure management graduates. However, there are a number of challenges facing these graduates and universities as they engage in their tertiary study programs and prepare for post-graduation employment: • The proliferation of leisure and recreation courses over the past two decades will add to the competitiveness for jobs: 33 of 37 Australian universities have study offerings in this field, along with TAFE colleges and private providers; • Industry employers often have difficulty in differentiating the range of qualifications on offer and the quality of the learning outcomes from these study programs; • A scan of newspaper job advertisements seeking leisure industry staff, showed that leisure management graduates may compete for their jobs with graduates from business, marketing, arts and numerous other degree programs; • Many graduates will be required to work in cross-disciplinary teams such as in health, education, and community services; requiring collaboration, teamwork, and multi-skilling; • Generic skills and abilities and industry experience will likely have as much influence on gaining employment as a graduates’ degree qualification. From a sample of newspaper job advertisements taken from the Brisbane Courier Mail and the Weekend Australian during the 20012002 period, it would appear that employers in the leisure industry rarely asked for a leisure-specific degree when advertising vacant positions, and few jobs appeared to be defined exclusively for leisure management graduates (Industry Practicum Office, 2002). Research by Harvey, Moon and Geall (1997) supported the notion that graduate jobs, linked to a prescribed educational degree, have all but disappeared. In reality, it seems unlikely that many ‘prescribed’ leisure degree jobs have evolved in a relatively new leisure industry in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). Other reports on graduate recruitment and employment have also recognised that a strong disciplinary knowledge base does not, of itself, guarantee a new graduate a job (Association for Graduate Recruiters, 1993; 1995; AC Nielsen Research Services, 2000). Bell and Schmidt (1996) found that leisure degree graduates often develop careers in employment areas far removed from their original field of study. Their study of leisure degree graduates from a seven-year period, 19871993, indicated