ABSTRACT
The development of employees’ skills and competences has become a key driver of economic growth in the developed world. It is widely recognised that enhancing people’s skills and competences will be a major cause of future competitive advantage. Consequently, companies need to be able to identify precise areas where they have, or can build, distinctive competences. To meet these needs, various models and approaches for continuing engineering education have emerged. One such approach is the facilitated work-based learning (FWBL) model, the aim of which is to introduce an approach to tailor-made courses built on work-based learning (WBL) and problem-based learning (PBL). This paper addresses the implementation of tailor-made continuing engineering education in company settings through the use of FWBL. It draws on a huge amount of documentation produced within the Via Nord project, which was supported by the European Social Fund and engaged various companies in northern Denmark. The aim is to investigate how the FWBL model worked in practice when implemented as a means for tailor-made continuing engineering education applied in a company setting.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributors
Bente Nørgaard Ph.D. is assistant professor at the UNESCO Centre for Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Science and Sustainability and lecturer in the Department of Planning at Aalborg University. She is active in the research group Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in Engineering Education and Sustainability. Bente is a council member of The International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE) and she is head of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) Working Group on Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning.