Five principles to integrate professional skill development within a curriculum to ensure industry-ready graduates

There is an increasing expectation that tertiary institutions will produce industry-ready graduates. Reportedly, there is industry concern that information and communication technology (ICT) graduates are not industry-ready as they are weak in the critical professional (soft) skills, such as communication and collaboration. In response, an ICT curriculum that integrated the development of professional skills alongside the development of technical skills, such as programming, networking and databases, was designed and implemented, and the impact on graduate competency was evaluated. This paper proposes five principles that can be employed by curriculum designers to guide the inclusion of professional skill development throughout a curriculum to enhance the professional competence of ICT graduates without having a detrimental impact on their competency with ICT technical skills.