Cooperation between
higher education
institutions and
businesses
by
Marianne van Loenhout
Policymaker at Dutch Royal
Metaalunie
[email protected]
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.
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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 4
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…
7
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
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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 throughout10
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 knowledge12
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:
[email protected]
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