Challenges for higher education collaborators aiming for graduates to enter the workforce equipped with appropriate international and multi-cultural skills

In this paper it is my intention to discuss whether the students in the partnership between China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT) and Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) graduate with skills that will see them as cross-culturally sensitive and able to perform professionally and/or socially in an international and multi-cultural context. In the Education Working Paper No. 8, July 2007 for Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Marginson and Marijk van der Wende state “it is no longer possible for nations or for individual higher education institutions to completely seal themselves off from global effect”. As CUMT and SUT degrees, that form part of the partnership, are concerned with Business Management and Electronic Commerce both universities undoubtedly recognise the importance of the cross-culturally sensitive skills as our students prepare to work in a global workforce.