INTEGRATING WORK BASED LEARNING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION

WEXHE TOOLS AND MECHANISM FOR SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF WORK-BASED LEARNING PUBLISHED

The WEXHE project has finished its outcomes, which are now made available to all (potential) users of Work-Based Learning (WBL). See the part on Resources on this Website. All materials – relevant for all disciplinary sectors – can be downloaded for wider distribution.

The materials involve WEXHE Packages for the successful implementation and running of three modes of Work-Based Learning: Work Placements (internships / apprenticeships), Traineeships and Entrepreneurship. For each of these modes three comprehensive packages have been developed, which can be accommodated to national and local contexts. Regarding Work Placements the following distinction is made, which represents different levels of application: (1) Integrated Approach,  (2) Clearing House / Intermediary Approach and (3) Corporate Approach. Also for Traineeships, meant as bridging programmes between the higher education degree and the workplace, three WEXHE Packages have been prepared: Traineeship Packages for (1) Higher Education Institutions, (2) Small and Medium Sized Companies and (3) Governments, Governmental Agencies and NGO’s. Finally three WEXHE Packages have been defined to cover three different types of entrepreneurship: (1) the Promotion Approach, (2) the Business Creation Approach and (3) the Innovation Enhancement Approach (Intrapreneurship). To show the differences between the packages in a nut shell, three WEXHE Summary Reports have been published, covering respectively work placements, traineeships and entrepreneurship.

These documents are supported by a number of additional WEXHE Papers. For work placements an implementation model has been developed, which offers guidance how to set up and organize these, but also how to decide the student workload in terms of ECTS credits and how to apply quality assurance mechanisms. The document is entitled TEN STEPS. Setting-up, validating and evaluating work-based learning modules and work experience using ECTS-credits. Regarding Quality Assurance (QA) in WBL the project prepared two papers. The first one, entitled Quality Assurance and Work-Based Learning. A Report for the WEXHE Alliance offers an inventory of the state of affairs of QA for WBL in Europe. The second one, entitled Filling the Gap. Defining a Robust Quality Assurance Model for Work-Based Learning in Higher Education offers guidance how to apply QA in WBL in HE degree programmes.

RECENT EVENTS: WEXHE PROJECT BRUSSELS WORKSHOP

EURASHE, together with its WEXHE project’s partners, ENQA, UIIN and the University of Groningen, organized the workshop “Enhancing Work-Based Learning and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education”, which took place on 9 October 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. Watch our short video clips from the event, with our partners taking the stage to describe the vision of the project and its accomplishments so far.

Anaïs Gourdin from the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) explains their role in analyzing all the aspects of Quality Assurance in Work-Based Learning, working together with QA agencies to help them identify quality standards and criteria in the evaluation of WBL degrees.

Robert Wagenaar from the University of Groningen outlines the main outcomes of the WEXHE project towards a better integration of work-based learning and entrepreneurship experiences in Higher Education programmes.

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We want to keep you updated with our bi-annual journal, dedicated to showcase project outputs and further explore the work-based learning (WBL) landscape in Europe. Check the previous issues and access the WEXHE Journal in full here