Impact of Covid 19 on Work Integrated Learning for Computing Education

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) for university graduates allows students to gain employability skills through relevant employment experience and make them work-ready. However, the disruptions caused by COVID-19 pandemic has changed how universities deliver WIL programs for students in higher education. Students faced multiple challenges to be workplace ready during COVID-19. Enforced social distancing has impacted the delivery of WIL education in many ways, which requires the attention of all the stakeholders so that students are not missing out on the opportunities provided by WIL education and hence their career in the future. To deliver WIL in computing is different to delivering WIL in other disciplines. Consequently, there is a need to summarise the current practices adopted by higher education in delivering WIL education for computing students and how COVID19 has impacted it. This paper aims to briefly review WIL practices in computing education due to COVID-19, its impact on supervisors/academics, students, and student-industry relationships, and the challenges for developing student’s professional capabilities to make them employable in computing field.