Connecting work and education: should learning be useful, correct or meaningful?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the interplay between learning in school and learning in the workplace – and its problems. Historically, education and work have become separated and each developed its own rationale – a school rationale and a production rationale, both of which may form the foundation for interplay. Concurrently with this, the learners apply a subjective rationale based on their personal expectations and interests in education and work in the course of their lives. Using the three players, school, workplace and employee as a starting‐point, three different rationales on which to base interplay can be deduced. Since viable interplay may not be established based on one rationale alone, one needs an institutional framework to mediate between them. This article proposes that a modernised version of the Dual System of vocational education may be best to provide such a framework.