Alternanza scuola-lavoro (work-based learning) as a resource for higher education

Abstract

In Italy, Law no. 107/2015 made obligatory for all second grade secondary school students to spend a certain number of hours on alternanza scuola-lavoro activities (work-based learning). For Italian schools this opened up new horizons as well as new challenges on multiple levels: organisational, didactic and educational. Anyway Legal provisions and scientific evidence are in fact not sufficient to guarantee quality because school and work contexts are systems guided by different motivations, models and mechanisms. “Tailoring” and “co-designing” are the main characteristics of alternanza programmes offered by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; to investigate the quality of these experiences a survey has been launched. Whilst the study confirms the satisfaction of the participating schools, from the perspective of ongoing improvement, a number of areas for development emerged in relation to evaluation issue in particular. Beyond the experience itself, universities should consider alternanza a major topic for consideration, since it enhances their fundamental activities: research, education and the third mission; accommodating students on alternanza programmes is therefore a means of responding to local needs but also an opportunity to consolidate university development strategies.

National Level Support Programs for Youth in Relation to Effective School-to-Work Transition: Examples of Italy, Moldova, and Latvia

“…Depending on the type of school orientation (general or technical path of studies), they (ASL first and PCTO after) consist of the introduction of further hour courses of compulsory nature in the curricula of high school students, to be carried out at least partially in working contexts. The main objective is therefore to offer students the possibility to spend additional time, besides the usual time spent at school, in practical activities, usually in an enterprise or institution connected to the school's specific field of study [21].…”

“…The National Youth Sector Development Strategy for 2014-2020 was one of the premises of a more indepth evaluation and the establishment of young people as one of the main beneficiaries of the National Employment Strategy 2017-2021. Young people are well reflected in the strategy, namely in the major targets of the strategy, which proposed to increase the youth employment rate by 4.2% and reduce the youth unemployment rate to 7% (young people aged [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]. SNOFM is the first public policy document that addressed young people in the NEET category, and, even more, they established specific indicators for them: NEET men, NEET women, rural, and urban [29].…”