Improving the Integration of Formal Education and Work-Based Learning

European education systems are widely based on curricula that have been negotiated between different stakeholders in order to provide a kind of standardized qualification framework. At the European level, the European Qualification Framework allows for comparison between qualifications from different countries. All of this goes back to the large-scale European educational reforms of the 1990s, which were aimed at establishing a European market of education and employment with individual mobility between European countries. The European labor markets widely rely on formal qualifications to allocate individuals in the employment system. Hence, education, from the primary to the tertiary level, follows curricula that include canonical knowledge in a competence-based manner. Explicitly formulated written texts define the granting of degrees in educational systems. However, expertise, understood as the ability to perform reliably on an (extraordinarily) high level, is necessarily related to practical experiences of knowledge application. Hence, practical experiences outside educational settings are crucial contributors to the individual development of skills and capabilities.

The question of how best to integrate learning experiences outside educational settings into formal education is a long- and widely discussed issue in educational research and policy. The starting point of the Reformpädagogik in the late 19th century can be seen as a criticism of the educational system of that time, thought to rely too much on formal aspects and declarative knowledge. A century later, Resnick (1987) raised a criticism of traditional schooling systems with her seminal presidential speech at the AERA, contrasting in-school and out-of-school learning. She argued that traditional schooling widely generates inert knowledge, whereas crucial skills and capabilities are largely developed outside of school. She complained that learning at schools had developed to become an end in itself, with only weak links to real-world problems and real-world work techniques. Lesgold (1984) stated that all kinds of learning present, e.g., at workplaces (e.g., collaborative problem-solving) would be considered cheating in a school context.

Following this discourse and in line with a constructivist view of learning, approaches like cognitive apprenticeship and anchored instruction (Collins et al. 1991; CTGV 1990) were developed; all of these provided good examples of how real-world scenarios can enrich school-based learning. Problem-based learning and project work were established as regular approaches of school teaching, finding resonance with Resnick’s claim: school didactics began to more strongly incorporate the world outside of school in school teaching. The move to competence-based educational goals seen in European educational policy can also be interpreted as an attempt to address real-world problems in school education.

However, all of these issues are under the control of educational institutions. In line with the platitude that life teaches the most important lessons, it is still a challenge for formal education to integrate or to acknowledge experiences from settings beyond the influence of educational institutions.

Table 1. Learning environments with differing rationalities.

Learning Environment	Funding Body	Reason of Learning	Reference Scale
Workplace	Private company	Work requirements	Individual
School	State authority	General requirements	Classroom
External training	Chambers	Supplementing requirements	Training group
Daily life	---	Daily life requirements	Individual

summarizes one aspect of the problems encountered in attempting such an integration and focuses on different rationales for learning in different learning environments. Vocational education in the dual system is later discussed as an example.

An apprentice in the dual system oscillates between four kinds of learning environments, spending most of the time in daily life environments. There, the predominant learning experiences are individual ones, situated in quite specific circumstances, following individual goals of action, and resulting in individual sense making. Such a rationale for learning differs from the rationales present in workplaces, vocational schools, and external trainings, since they provide different reasons for learning and follow different aims due to their funding bodies. Additionally, in the arrangement of learning opportunities, vocational schools and external training primarily consider group rather than individual learning. Though curricula claim to consider individual experiences in lessons, integrating these experiences into formal education is left up to the individual teachers.

Hence—and this is what the contributions to this Special Issue reveal—the factual integration of work experiences into formal education depends on the individuals concerned: teachers, instructors, trainers, and learners. The seven contributions provide an insight into exemplary studies in different educational settings:

• Kärkkäinen et al. describe cases of migrant students in the setting of the Finnish vocational education system, interviewing 11 migrant students and 13 vocational teachers.
• Schwede et al. investigate five occupational settings in the German dual VET system, which explicitly claims to aim for the cooperation between different learning environments.
• Peterson et al. focus on upper secondary education in Estland and analyze institutional cooperation between workplaces and schools with regard to the development of students’ core competencies.
• Uppin and Timostsuk reveal how experiences at museums and environmental education centers can shape students’ career awareness, with a focus on the educators in such institutions.
• Näkk and Timostsuk investigate the challenges for primary school teachers who acknowledge the value of real-life experiences in school learning in developing children’s contemporary competencies.
• In a similar approach, Nurmik and Timostsuk describe primary teachers’ attempts to integrate students’ family work backgrounds into their teaching and reveal additional potential in local communities.

These exemplary studies reveal interesting insights supporting the assumption that a successful integration of work experiences into formal education relies on the commitment of teachers, trainers, and learners. It is not enough to claim this integration in formally defined administrative guidelines, because teaching practice reveals that such integration requires additional individual efforts. Finally, the contributions to this Special Issue also reveal that real-life situations (e.g., work) are not only relevant to mature students but may also support younger children’s learning.