Cooperation between higher education institutions and businesses

1. Cooperation between higher education institutions and businesses by Marianne van Loenhout Policymaker at Dutch Royal Metaalunie loenhout@metaalunie.nl

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Situation in the Netherlands

6. 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

7. Metaalunie and the cooperation • Associate degree • Knowledge institutions like the laser-application centre with a university • Finding employers for internships • Knowledge transfer • Some examples…

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. Examples

14. 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 ?

15. Thank you for your attention. More information: loenhout@metaalunie.nl