Australian students as international students doing a work integrated learning in India and Vietnam

• In Event: International student employability: Narratives of strengths, challenges, and strategies from Global South students

Proposal

This presentation examines how a capstone work integrated learning (WIL) subject in occupational therapy places Australian students in India and Vietnam. This presentation provides an example of Global North students studying in a Global South Country. Participation in this program assisted student employability, with the majority of students reporting that their WIL experience helped them secure a job within the first few weeks after completion of their occupational therapy degree. This presentation details the student experiences in the Global South and demonstrates how WIL helped develop students' global citizenship and enhanced their employability.
As the Australian students become international students, they experience out-of-comfort zone learning experiences that are considered optimum for experiential learning (De Andreotti, 2014). This presentation shows that outward bound international mobility is one method of providing out-of-comfort learning experiences. The presentation details a WIL project-based experience that final year Australian occupational therapy students undertook in two Global South countries, India and Vietnam. The geographic contexts of the projects discussed in this chapter are overwhelmingly characterized by the inequality and access issues highlighted by Dados and Connell (2012). There is limited literature about international online placement or work/employability outcomes regarding GC. This chapter presents findings on collective student experiences over four years of international placements in Global South countries, principally India and Vietnam, with an emphasis on GC capabilities and their impact on employability. Final the occupational therapy students who complete a capstone subject in which there is an entry entry level course in Melbourne, Australia were invited to participate in outward bound mobility experiences in two Global South countries. In this capstone project-based learning (PrBL) placement subject, students look beyond the challenges facing individuals and consider the ways in which occupational therapists enable change at service/organisation, community, or population levels. This is referred to as macro level practice in which students focus on gaining knowledge and developing capabilities for an impending role as an influential health practitioner in a rapidly changing health and social policy context.
Methods: Qualitative data was obtained from focus groups, interviews with the students and responses from written student questionnaires. Since 2016 students have been visiting the site countries and the methods help to assess the level in which students are gaining valuable experiences of international mobility. The on-ground experience pre-2019 is then compared with the virtual 2020 experience.
Findings: The Australian student experiences of international mobility to Global South countries demonstrated that immersion in different cultural contexts is essential to ensure globally-enabled graduates. The pedagogy framework for this exchange via a capstone WIL subject in the occupational therapy course was the interlacing of four domains: formal academic, informal academic, formal social, informal social (Todhunter et al., 2013). The capstone WIL subject in occupational therapy described in this chapter is one such initiative that can play a critical role in producing graduates with the core GC competencies and capability to address issues of social justice and diversity.

Authors

• Anoo Bhopti, Monash University

• Carajane Millar