Graduate capabilities

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Embedding Graduate Capabilities in the Core Curriculum

The QUT Law Faculty is an acknowledged leader in legal and justice education innovations, particularly in terms of its skills development program and the embedding of "graduate capabilities". "Graduate capabilities" are the qualities, skills and understandings a student is expected to develop throughout the course of their degree, both generic and discipline specific - including attitudinal, cognitive, communication and relational skills.

Over the course of the last decade, both nationally and internationally, law and justice educators have been under increasingly pressure from their graduates, employers, professional admission bodies, the practising profession and the judiciary to ensure the relevance of a modern legal and justice education to professional practice specifically and the global workplace generally. The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), in its recent Report Managing Justice [1], emphasised that what lawyers need to do is more important for their training that what lawyers need to know.

What this means for you as students is that a dominant focus on mastering vast amounts of substantive content knowledge law (for example, in law, which, given how quickly law changes in contemporary society, has only a limited shelf life in any event) is now regarded as insufficient for your effective functioning as "wholly-prepared", reflective practitioner-graduates. What is equally as important for you on graduation is that you have the necessary skills to integrate experience, information and knowledge to act as competent professionals who are skilled lifelong learners in a workforce that is increasingly diverse and globalised.

To train this type of graduate, the QUT Law Faculty has embarked on a substantive program to inculcate both generic and discipline specific skills in a holistic way in the core undergraduate curriculum. This balancing of content with skills reflects research that has found that many of the most frequently used skills by law and justice graduates in any type of law and justice related employment are communication (both oral and written), time management, document management and computer skills². In law, Legally specific skills, while important to private professional practice, are not, necessarily, the most frequently used. Therefore, to enable our students to present their learning achievements most effectively in the wider employment market, the current agenda for QUT Law Faculty curriculum review is content knowledge tied together with embedded generic and discipline skills.

Professor David Weisbrot, formerly Dean of the University of Sydney Law Faculty and currently President, Australian Law Reform Commission, speaking recently at an American Legal Education Conference, described QUT Law Faculty's graduate capabilities program as follows:

The level of thinking and research which supports the integrationist reforms at QUT is probably the most advanced in Australia.

Members of the Faculty have published widely and presented papers on the advances made in legal education under this program and the Faculty has had two of its academics reach the finals of the prestigious national Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) in the law and legal studies category in 1999 and 2001 in recognition of their excellence in teaching.

The Law Faculty has recently secured another Teaching and Learning Development Large Grant from the University for 2002-2003, entitled Assuring Quality in the Assessment of Social, Relational and Cultural Generic Capabilities in the Faculty of Law, to further enhance the quality of its undergraduate programs in law and justice studies.

I encourage all students to make the most of the opportunities presented to them to enhance their skills acquisition and capability attainment during their time with the Faculty. Full implementation of the skills program for all core undergraduate units in law (across the four years of the degree) has now been implemented and students can benefit from a fully integrated and incremental skills program. As part of the comprehensive review of the previous Bachelor of Arts (Justice Studies), a set of graduate capabilities has been identified for the new Bachelor of Justice degree, including relevant generic and professional skills, and implementation of this integrated skills program is progressing in stages.

Students may view the work done to date in relation to the Graduate Capabilities in Law program at the Faculty's skills website at https://olt.qut.edu.au/law/LAWGRADUATE/sec/index.cfm?

[1] Australian Law Reform Commission, Managing Justice - A Review of the Federal Civil Justice System, ALRC, December 1999 ("ALRC Report No 89"), Chapter 2 "Education, Training and Accountability" at para 2.21, citing the American Bar Association, Legal Education and Professional Development - An Educational Continuum, ABA Chicago 1992 ("MacCrate Report"). The relevant recommendation of the ALRC was: "Recommendation 2. In addition to the study of core areas of substantive law, university legal education in Australia should involve the development of high level professional skills and a deep appreciation of ethical standards and professional responsibility."

[2] S.Vignaendra, Australian Law Graduates Career Destinations, Centre for Legal Education, Sydney, May 1998 at 39.