Work-based learning discussed at breakfast meeting

"The Transition from Higher Education to Employment" was the theme of a business breakfast organised by the British Council in Malta with the collaboration of the Malta Federation of Industry. The event was held on March 29 at Le Meridien Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana.

The main objective of this event was to provide a local platform for a discussion on lifelong education. The event, which brought together people from business, academia, HR practitioners and policy makers, was opened by University Rector Professor Juanito Camilleri who touched briefly on areas of collaboration between academia and industry as win-win opportunities, and explained the importance of studying the work-based learning needs which differ depending on the size of the business operators and their respective business activities.

The main speaker for the event was Professor Karen Evans, who has been head of the School of Lifelong Education and International Development within the Institute of Education at the University of London since 2002, and is currently co-director of the Centre for Excellence in Work-based Learning for Education Professionals.

Professor Evans has directed various studies of learning and the world of work, as well as having sat on several boards related to educational research and editorial boards of journals widely used in the field of work-based learning.

In her presentation, which was focused on putting knowledge to work and meeting the challenges of university-industry collaboration through work-based learning.

Professor Evans explained that higher education is facing multiple challenges to its status and roles in societies across the globe. Far from holding a dominant position in the growth of knowledge economies and societies there is an impending crisis in the nature of the knowledge for which universities have historically stood.

These challenges are stimulating much innovation, including the search for new ways to connect higher education with the worlds of industry, business and commerce, to meet changing social, educational and economic demands.

Work-based Learning (WBL) in Higher Education refers to a new generation of higher education programmes that bring together universities and work organisations to create new learning opportunities in the workplace. Employees undertake study for a degree, diploma or other forms of credit primarily in and through their workplaces. Their learning opportunities arise from normal work. Unlike conventional degree programmes that take, as their starting point, the subject or discipline later to be applied in workplace settings, WBL programmes take everyday work practices as their starting point and expand these by bringing in intellectual and other resources from outside, to deepen and expand the workplace learning.

WBL programmes relate to the practicalities of occupations and to subject-based, formal knowledge in many different ways. Paradoxically, given the emphasis on 'knowledge economies', there is often a marked lack of clarity in the understanding of the different types of knowledge involved. Work-based knowledge can be highly contextualised or generic. Subject knowledge tends to be independent of context. The two forms of knowledge do not readily or automatically relate to one another. Universities and industries have fundamentally contrasting approaches, with businesses using and generating knowledge for different purposes and ends. How can learning programmes be devised that put both kinds of knowledge to work in ways that enrich the organisation, the employee and the university? What are the potentialities and the constraints?

Drawing on recent investigations sponsored by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry Commercial Education Trust and the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the speaker considered these questions with reference to examples from HE-Industry partnership schemes in the UK, from small and medium enterprise collaborations and from specific industry/business sectors.

The presentation was intended to raise and illustrate some of the wider issues involved in creating HE-Industry partnerships, leading into discussion of the possibilities and constraints in university-industry collaboration in the Maltese context.

In her conclusion, Professor Evans listed five stages to improve workplace learning:

• Identify the dimensions of the workplace that impact on learning;

• Assess workplace as a learning environment (factors that restrict and expand);

• Identify potential for improvements (e.g. reducing factors that restrict);

• Identify balance of advantages in introducing particular changes;

• Implementation and monitoring.

Professor Evans' participation at this business breakfast was part of an intensive two-day visit to Malta which also included her meeting with the Minister of Education, Youth, and Employment Louis Galea, the main Opposition spokesman on education, culture and youth, Carmelo Abela, University Rector Professor Juanito Camilleri, Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) principal Frank Edwards, and Jacques Sciberras of the National Commission for Higher Education, as well as participating at workshops organised by MCAST.