WORKPLACE LEARNING IS AN ESSENTIAL PART of every vocational education and training programme in the Netherlands. As in other countries, the workplace is regarded as an environment with great learning potential (Bailey, Hughes and Moore, 2004; Billet, 1999), and learning in such an environment is considered indispensable for the development of job-relevant competencies. As a consequence, a substantial amount of training time is spent on workplace learning and its importance is stressed by an act passed by the Dutch government, which states that a diploma is to be awarded to a student only when he has satisfactorily completed the period of workplace learning. Nevertheless, important as it is, workplace learning is also problematic. Studies point to insufficient preparation, interaction and organisation (Blokhuis, Jellema and Nijhof, 2002). Improving the quality of workplace learning is considered necessary by all the parties involved. The interesting question is how. © 2008 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
Author Keywords
Index Keywords
