Reaching agreement and arranging quality assurance for work-based learning collaboration

Abstract

The shift towards knowledge-based economies and the change in the education system from elitist to mass education have brought education institutes to the centre stage to produce work-ready graduates. The new paradigm of work-based learning (WBL) stresses the direct relevance between learning for qualification and the work-related experience. A collaborative approach to leveraging the strengths of education institutes and industry partners in offering WBL programmes, is growing in prominence. It is revealed from the literature that WBL collaboration needs substantial combined efforts from both sides of the education-industry partnership in quality assurance to ensure the integration of formal and informal learning opportunities. But the heterogeneity of forms of learning and quality requirements in education institutes and the world of work, makes the collaboration challenging. The existing literature has provided some insights for enhancing understanding among partners and for education institutes to develop their approach to support quality assurance in WBL. However, the existing literature does not sufficiently cover the processes and critical factors for the two sides to reach agreement and arrange various roles and responsibilities to support quality assurance in the WBL collaboration. Furthermore, what happens to be missing is a unifying framework that captures the perspectives from both education institute and industry partner. This research is therefore an exploratory study to seek greater understanding about the dynamics and ways to approach WBL collaboration between the two sides of the education-industry partnership, with a focus on reaching agreement and arranging quality assurance for WBL collaboration. By investigating the major issues and steps in reaching agreement and arranging quality assurance for the WBL collaboration of five pairs of education-industry partners, the use of the grounded theory approach can provide an opportunity for consolidating practical experiences to inform the framework development. The findings provide insights about the major steps involved in the formation of the collaborative arrangements as well as the design of a WBL programme and quality assurance arrangments that can draw on the expertise and experience of both sides of the partnership. A framework, with three main themes emerging from the analysis and theorisation processes, provides possible mechanisms for collaborative efforts to achieve improvement that preserves and enhances each other’s training efforts and resources in a win-win situation. The framework includes strategic perspectives for the attainment and development of an education-industry partnership that fits the needs of both sides. It describes the possibilities of a compatible collaboration structure and the co-efforts required to achieve quality assurance from both sides to support the integration of academic content and workplace training in the WBL programme. Moreover, it identifies some overarching factors that are essential for the reaching of agreement and arranging co-effort to achieve quality assurance. This research contributes to the field not only as a practical explanation for understanding the know-how of WBL partnership formation but also as a substantive theory to the scholarly literature in the field that informs a way that has a wider range of applicability.