Shifting landscapes in higher education: a case study of transferable skills and a networked classroom in South-East Asia

The rapidly changing workforce of the C21st places increasing demands on higher education institutions to produce graduates who possess sound academic credentials and key skills, and who furthermore demonstrate the ability to transfer knowledge and skills from their studies to the workplace. This paper begins with a definition of key/core skills, followed by a discussion of how they relate to transferable skills. A review of literature regarding the transference of skills from tertiary settings to workplaces in South-East Asia reveals that most literature of the region addresses key competencies rather than the transferable skills that employers value. Transferable skills are further analysed in the context of networked spaces of learning and the theory of connectivist learning. A case study of one networked classroom (NC) of an Australian university in Singapore is presented, highlighting how engagement in problem-based and project-based learning contributes to the development of transferable skills. Results indicate that the spatial and material resources of the NC intersect with practice-based learning experiences assisting students in skills acquisition by providing a teaching and learning space in which to apply transferable skills. Implications of this study point to the need for further research regarding embedding transferable skills within higher education curricula.