Top 10 Reasons Why Work-Based Learning is a Winner

Top 10 Reasons Why Work-Based Learning is a Winner

Flexible, attuned and responsive to market demand - WBL offers clear advantages to learners, employers and stakeholders.

 Work-based learning (WBL) has long featured as an aspect of European vocational education and training. Today, with rapid technological change driving a revolution in work - and in how we work - practical, hands-on training has never been more important. The European Training Foundation offers its Top Ten reasons why WBL is a winner for today's employment market.

 

1. Engagement. WBL engages learners in their chosen professional or trade path, enabling them to both understand through practical training in the workplace and combined theory and practice at VET institution the demands of their calling - and whether this is the path for them.
2. Partnership. Bringing learners and employers together in the workplace encourages and creates dynamic partnerships between vocational education authorities, VET schools and enterprises. Forging strong, working partnerships enables strong and effective communications between policy makers, training providers and the employment market.
3. Innovation. The enthusiasm and application of bright, engaged young people in the workplace promotes innovation and fresh ideas. Innovation clusters - of the kind created, for example, in Serbia's Vojvodina ICT Cluster, bring the brightest minds in fast emerging technological fields together with trainees who have grown up on 21st technologies.
4. Image boost. Many countries struggle to promote the value of vocational education and training. Stubborn social attitudes that puts a higher value on a university education over crafts or trades training persist, despite abundant evidence proving the value of practical skills training: as many as 50 percent of all jobs in the EU demand medium-level skilled qualifications. WBL is key to providing skilled workers - and in the process boosting the image of vocational education and training.
5. Better recruitment. For many employers - particularly Small and Medium Enterprises, which in most countries still form the largest proportion of workplaces - filling vacancies with suitably skilled workers is often a challenging, time consuming and costly exercise. The investment made when singing up to WBL training programmes pays off when students graduate - with the best and brightest often offered a job where they trained.
6. Increased relevance. VET schools that actively engage with employers in WBL schemes experience a boost in local relevance. In Lviv, Ukraine, a tourism and catering college that is involved in WBL schemes counts top chefs among its visiting lecturers and a thriving college-based small business supplying top quality cakes and pastries to local customers.
7. Improved results. WBL is a win-win for all involved - helping boost students' academic performance and reducing training costs for employers. Kirsi Lindroos, team leader for Science, Education and Social Matters at the European Commission's DG NEAR (European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations), notes: "WBL helps students learn how the things they learn in the classroom are connected to the real world."
8. Quality Assurance. By combining classroom and workplace learning, the overall quality of training can be improved, although WBL does require new approaches to quality assurance, Erwin Seyfried, a Berlin School of Economics and Law professor and international expert of quality assurance in VET, says. "Today quality assurance is driven by customer feedback, not just traditional inspection and control of delivery."
9. Incentives. WBL can be used to incentivize both learners and stakeholders. It eases school to work transition. In Moldova, a public promotion campaign has put the benefits of VET including WBL in a nutshell: "Learn, Work, Earn!"
10. Opportunity and Focus. In countries intent on reforming their vocational education and training systems WBL provides a focus for innovation and progress. In Armenia financial and non-financial incentives to WBL are being considered; Moldova is approving new apprenticeship laws; and in Ukraine a law on VET with provisions for dual learning is being adopted.