Paper Title
Enhancing Foundation Skills for Learning and Employability

Abstract
In order to cope with the demands of the 21st century, students are required to master not only the core subject knowledge to attain occupation-specific discipline skills but also the generic skills, including foundation skills such as literacy and numeracy. The Australian Industry Group has been recently assessing and raising concerns about the level of foundation skills in the workforce. The purpose of the research reported here is to understand students’ learning in higher education and graduate employability skills to arrive at a change in curriculum for enhancing their foundation skills. This paper presents a pilot study testing the foundation skills of a small group of students. Results of the study reveal that the existing level of numeracy and literacy is lower than expected, and the new curriculum with a cross-discipline and innovative teaching strategy is designed to enhance students’ foundation skills successfully for their lifelong learning and employability. Index Terms—curriculum, employability, foundation skills, generic skills, higher education, learning.