Rural/urbano: «entre la ciudad y el campo yo elegiría el campo; lo digo

Unlike in PT learning where students learn a set university programme in the evenings and weekends independently from their employer, WBL is directly related to the

employer and workplace hence employers’ support in many ways could impact on students’ learning and performance. Employer could play different roles as top

management, line manager, supervisor, colleague/peer, of which any of them could be the mentor for the student whilst extending support in terms of inputs to the learning contract, and providing technical, financial, logistical, moral and admin support. How different stakeholders view on the same is depicted below.

Students

How employees are supported by their employers will have a significant impact on the success of WBL delivery. The support could be in many ways as mentioned above and

even a mere moral support would assist in a big boost for student’s progress. The student

comments below are self explanatory.

A technical issue was mentioned related to access to university servers “I couldn’t

download Citrix software for DTA application in my workplace due to IT security restrictions at the workplace which was the only flaw.”

“Being a volunteer employee, it was difficult for me to ask for any kind of

assistance/support from my employer which I found quite difficult during my WBL

programme. Also, not being in their permanent cadre, they didn’t have any obligation to

train me or support me.” This comment brings out the importance of being in the permanent cadre of the workplace for the employee to seek for support. Also about a

didn’t have any restrictions from my employers to use physical workplace resources for my studies.”

Academics

According to WBL theories, employers should support the employees in many ways but most importantly they should support on the learning contracts with their subject expertise. The academics commented on this as follows.

“I have observed and noted in the u/g programmes that some employers are getting

fed up with employee questions related to work-based projects and also by letting employees take time off for studies during office hours. I have so far 4 students either

dropped out or deferred due to employer related problems.”

On why employers’ inputs are important “May be because without supervision in

that level of professional context student wouldn’t know what to learn and also what’s the best way of doing certain things. Also, the student would need supervision from a person in the workplace who has certain level of authority to reflect and evaluate the actions student

would perform.”

Not only do the subject knowledge/skills matter but also the overall development of the employee is important and this largely depends on the employer support “WBL

happens in real life scenario which mainly depends on how much time and effort the supervisor put towards the learner towards development of the learner. From the

employer’s point of view, the learner has to be treated as a valuable resource for the

company and pay careful attention which would ultimately benefit the company upon

employee’s completion of the HE qualification. The learner’s team work abilities, communication and leadership skills would be part and parcel of the learning which would

allow the learner to become an important contributor to the organization”.

On how employer sponsorships are important “Main drive for WBL from the employees’ point of view is employer sponsorships which had a big impact for the increased numbers. I guess many school leavers will opt for WBL as many won’t be able to

afford the new university fees and we haven’t traditionally targeted WBL for school leaver

market which we’ll have to do in the near future.” and how to tackle the sponsorship matter is “Each organization has a budget for training and what they are looking for is

work-force skills. If the employers see these WBL programmes are adding value to the organization as well as to the employees who are already in work or even a school pass

out new employee, they would sponsor because it’s beneficial in the longer run to have

Employers

Employers should see this as an opportunity and extend their support where possible. “We would hope to keep staff but if there is no suitable career progression they

may choose to leave. Our CPD policy regarding bonding is in the event of a member of staff leaving the College while they are studying for a long external qualification the College reserves the right to seek the return of all or part of the costs incurred by the College in relation to the qualification. Normally the College would seek repayment of all costs it has incurred if the member of staff leaves within one year of completing the qualification, and 50% if they leave within two years. However, we do conduct cost benefit analyses before enrolling our employees on University WBL programmes comparing against short term industrial training programmes avaialble” The bonding arrangements

should be enforced to ensure staff retention after obtaining qualifications on employers’

account.

“Our final target is to make them achieve their CEng status so we support them to prepare for it by supporting for MSc Professional Engineering type of affordable programmes. If the programme cost goes higher with the current trend, we will have to

look for alternatives.” This is a serious issue which all universities in the UK would face with the new fee increase and the government should find alternative remedial actions to solve this issue.

The employers’ expectations of the WBL model from the university are clear in

this statement. “No bonding arrangements but the degree qualification is only the beginning of training for professional librarianship. I am continuing to support my

employee with ‘on the job’ training...I would think that any interaction between employers and learning providers is beneficial to both sides, it gives the company a better idea of what the individual is required to produce, deadlines and enables the company to

feel involved in the learning interventions being delivered on our behalf.”

There was a very positive supportive approach from this employer in terms of CPD point of view of employees. “I believe that employees value the investment that the

company is prepared to make in them, which has been proven to myself in terms of our very low staff turnover and high level of qualified individuals who have started with the company, some in trainee and apprentice roles that are now going onto fulfill positions of responsibility within the company. This has led to opportunities to recruit individuals from other organizations where perhaps their development needs were not being addressed...Our aim is all our professionals get their charter status and once they

There are occasions where the full package one can expect from an employer has been provided like in this case.“We support by fully sponsoring course fee, encouraging

and guiding, allocating free hours for studies, providing a book allowance, study leave for exams, and providing a mentor at workplace”.

“The current student who is working on the University’s distance WBL programme keeps me in touch with what she is undertaking. We had an interesting discussion about the ethics of charging for elements of services which was stimulated by the work she had

been reading over the weekend” This is the kind of collaborative approach needed where employer too would learn from the new knowledge the student gains in the programme.

This comment justifies Raelin’s (2000) quote in chapter 2 which says “WBL uses many

diverse technologies, but primarily it is the deployment of action projects, learning teams, and other interpersonal experiences, such as mentorships which allow and encourage

learning related dialogues”. Evans et al (2001) explain in their paper how an employer benefits from high quality informed research of employees in the example of a food retail company which had sponsored 20 of their managers to undertake PG WBL programmes. The management of the company felt that the projects undertaken by those managers were of a vastly improved calibre compared to the equivalent work of external consultants

because the managers’ insider knowledge of the detailed context of their work brings in-

depth understanding and analysis.

Another employer commented on monitoring of their employees’ progress “I

formerly meet them every month to discuss their progress. Although it is a monthly meeting, I see them almost every day and if they have any problem/issue they would tell me...further employees have to produce weekly reports and submit to me. Graduates are requested to report at the management meetings in front of all others so they cannot

survive if they haven’t performed or learned up to the expectations. I have created an electronic journal where they have to maintain their daily learning. I expect them to note down the skills and learning on this journal which will require as the training need for their charter qualification as well. We do have around 20 chartered engineers in the company already which has a big impact in the commercial bids as long as the company profiles are concerned. We are very happy with our engineers who follow this MSc on

their progress“. This employer has realised what is expected of him in this process and the ultimate benefits the company would reap. He further added “If the university can

advertise about their WBL offerings, it will have more weight for our employees as well as

Professional Bodies

This positive endorsement of the PB indicates their willingness and desire to make

this WBL initiative realistic through employers’ support. “We can’t force employers to do

this but they have to see the advantage of their employees being developed and better qualified. Although employers want to make profits primarily, they also like to support employees seeing the real tangible benefits of WBL. We do however encourage our candidates to talk to their employers before they embark and seek support to get an assessor/s from the company itself (other tha n their mentor or supervisor) because

company itself is the best to know their employees’ learning from the workplace. I would

be surprised if a candidate says to me that my company is not willing to support me in my

WBL because appointing one or more senior person/s for different aspects of employee’s

learning is beneficial for the company. However, much depends on finances: some employers ha ve been more supportive than others. Given the current cut-backs facing local authorities in the UK, I would not be surprised if employers no longer felt able to support

staff“.