Employability skills for Australian industry : literature review and framework development

Australia has assigned considerable resources during the 1990s in attempts to embed the Mayer Key Competencies into education and training provision, especially in the VET sector. However while there is general agreement that all young Australians need a set of skills which will prepare them for employment and further learning, there is a lack of consensus about what those skills should be. This report draws on Australian and international literature on key employability skills to: clarify concepts and terminology; analyse the principles and purposes in different approaches to key employability competencies; develop a framework of key employability competencies for use in the fieldwork strands of the overall project; and propose some options for the development of key employability skills to become more embedded in Australian education and training.