Development of Strategic Partnerships for Work-Based Learning

Abstract

Competitiveness of companies on local and international markets greatly depends on skilled labor force. There is an increased need for well-trained medium level specialists prepared by the vocational education and training (VET) systems. For countries with school-based VET systems tailor made approaches for work-based learning need to be implemented. This requires also new strategic partnerships. In Latvia in 2016 legal regulation on work-based learning was adopted. However, there is little research on the pre-conditions enabling the public administration to implement innovative VET approaches. The purpose of the study is to investigate the opinions of relevant public stakeholders from the education, employment and economic sectors regarding innovation in VET and the feasibility of strategic partnerships in this regard. The methods used: public administrators’ survey results analysis in scale of 1–10. For data processing of survey results indicators of descriptive statistics (means and indicators of variability) as well as cross tabulations and multivariate analysis—factor analysis were applied. For countries with school-based systems work-based learning as an innovative form of VET requires partnerships by public stakeholders from various branches. Strategic partnerships beyond the national level might be beneficial, especially among countries with historically similar educational and cultural backgrounds.