Work-integrated learning: In search of questions

I spent the last few days in a global gathering of cooperative educators, the indefatigable group of people who work at the fault line of academia and industry daily. Their commitment and enthusiasm for what they do are inspiring. And so many good ideas! Those who think universities sit on ivory towers and don't think much about how they educate would be pleasantly surprised.

Yet the elephants in the room are hard to ignore. Undergraduate numbers are falling. The industry is looking for global talent, not just local ones. The governments fund much of the work-integrated learning work, which can change overnight with a recession looming. And the biggest of them all is the question of what effect the transformation of work will have on how we approach the question of classroom-to-career transition.

I was the odd person in the room, not being from a university. Therefore, it was easy for me to say what I said: A new solution is needed. It seems to me that this needs to be an ecosystem solution. Even with the great work that some universities are doing placing thousands of students at internships (and a state university in Germany which only educates students who have been pre-selected and already employed by their industry partners), the system stands on two shaky pillars: First, history and ranking of the universities which allow them to attract employers, and second, the government funding either the university or the student (or, in some cases, the employers), to sustain the system. Even the deep passions of committed professionals wouldn't be able to overcome trust shifting away from the universities and the rise of here-and-now corporate certification and credential movements. After Covid emptied the campuses, higher education is more essentialist than ever before. Another global economic recession may pull the rug out under the feet of the whole sector.

Therefore, the paradigm needs to shift from service excellence to harnessing the power of data in this sector too. I came looking for discussions on the use of analytics, data sharing with employers and predictive assessments. I have no doubt that this is the future - platform solutions that go beyond the one-to-one institution and employer linkages to matching at scale and across the globe. The ethos of work-integrated learning often originates from service professions, nursing and education, for example, and many of its proponents come from these sectors. And, these 'in-person service' professions(to use Robert Reich's classification) perhaps require greater in-person engagement and a constant calibration of sorts that define the profession of work-based learning at this time. However, a greater number of well-paid jobs are now being created at the 'symbolic analyst' (another Reich classification) segment of the labour market. Fit for these roles can be more quantifiable and can therefore be served better by data-sharing platforms, and less so by the personalised account management methods used by the universities at this time.

After three busy days of learning and engagement, I am now confronted with many new questions: How to combine the deep understanding of the learners of these committed practitioners with a scalable platform solution that can go across institutions? How to support the learners during the course of their work-integrated learning through data and automation without being too intrusive? How to combine the edginess of work environments with the safety of the classroom, in shaping the learner experience? And further, how to turn work-integrated learning on its head and reinvent it as learning-integrated work? In short, I achieved what I came for: A lot of questions!