cooperation between higher education institutions and businesses by marianne van loenhout...

Cooperation between higher education institutions and

businesses

byMarianne van Loenhout

Policymaker at Dutch Royal Metaalunie

loenhout@metaalunie.nl

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Agenda

• Royal Metaalunie• Training Fund OOM• Situation in the Netherlands• Associate degree in the Netherlands• Metaalunie and cooperation• Metaalunie and Associate degree• Investigation of needs• Discussion

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Royal Metaalunie• Royal Dutch Association for small and medium

sized companies in the metal industry• > 13,000 members; 140,000 employees• # employees per member: 1 – 100, average of

15• Companies are engaged in

– Construction– Mechanical engineering– Machining– Agricultural mechanisation, etc.

• Promotion of collective and individual interests

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Training Fund OOM• Training, Education and Development

Fund for the Metal Industry Sector• Fund filled by wage payment (0,6 %) and

european subsidies• PTT (max 375 euro pp py, max 50%) and

LWB (max 2000 pp py, max 2 years)• Compensation for internships, also for

higher education (max 125 pp pw)• Project: describing illustrations of higher

educated professionals in the metal sector

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Situation in the Netherlands

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Associate Degree in the Netherlands

• Shorter Higher Education. We call it the Associate Degree

• Intermediate level (5) in the EQF• It is still a pilot, so only certificate and no

formal degree yet. 2010? More and more Ad’s started.

• Extra step in higher education• Based on needs of labour market • Part of a bachelor, 120 ects

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Metaalunie and the cooperation

• Associate degree• Knowledge institutions like the laser-

application centre with a university• Finding employers for internships• Knowledge transfer• Some examples…

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Metaalunie and the Ad• Interested in Ad because of:

– Growing need of higher educated people– More influence in higher education– Shorter period(s) of education– Makes metal industry more interesting

• This happened so far– Investigation of needs of the labour market – Agreement with some higher education

institutions– More Ad programs

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Investigation of needs• Programs needed for:

– Management, businessmen– Production/project leading in engineering– Commercial technical functions– Intellectual level is needed (problem solving,

communication skills, etc.), not 4 years of higher education.

• Why now? Quality:– Developments in the market – Technological developments (ICT)– Cooperation with / outsourcing to other companies– Professionalising

• Why now? Quantity:– Job vacancies– Retirement– Company sales

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What do we want?Flexibility• Different target groups:

– young students from vocational secondary education (and from general secondary education)

– employees with several years of experience

• Assessments for employees• Tailor-made education• E-learning or other solutions for spreading

the education throughout the country

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Some difficulties• With autonomy of institutions• Promotion of Ad versus need of

employees right now• Members not very interested in LLL

– Short term vision– Afraid of loosing their employees to

their neighbours– No possibility for function growth

within the company

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In short

• Focus on maximum flexibility • More interaction with the industry:

– Content of the educational program (i.e. techniques, competences, case studies)

– Organisation (i.e. evening study, tailor-made education, pr)

– Exchange of people and knowledge

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Examples

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Discussion

• When more Ad’s are granted, how do we cope with that as an employers organisation? Examples?

• How are employers organisations involved in (shorter) higher education in your countries ?

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Thank you for your attention.

More information:loenhout@metaalunie.nl