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Bringing higher education to work places; Turn working centers in to small universities

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Photo of Ahmed yesuf
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Life by itself is a University. Where people learn everything. Present higher education requires commitment of time from the person, but for some higher education seekers, time was already allocated to work to fulfill basic needs. 

What if we bring higher education to work places? So that peoples looking for higher education work to fulfill their basic needs and as the same time attend their higher education in work places. Higher education providing institution will closely work with different work providing institutions, they may work with such center/ they may consider it as practical campus.

E.g. engineering university uses selected garages/factories other related work places as their practical education campus.  Business universities use audit firms/service providers as their practical education compass.

In such partnerships the university and the work environment will agree to provide higher education for employees working there. One option could be every day employees attending 30 minutes- 1 hour tutorial (either by qualified worker from the company, or by mobile lecture to be assigned by university). Suitable/cost effective/efficient ways may be arranged.

Benefits of such approach are -1.  For employees higher education is more accessible with minimum cost (as they will pay some amount). – 2. The company can benefit from continuous practice of theoretically thought sciences.  3. The higher education institution can achieve its mission with some profit, or at least without loss.  4. The linkage between working company and higher education will add value to the countries higher education.

Who is your idea designed for and how does it reimagine higher education to support the needs of tomorrow?

any one in need of quality higher education

This idea emerged from:

  • An individual

What skills, input or guidance from the OpenIDEO community would be most helpful in building out or refining your idea?

to develop the idea further

Tell us about your work experience:

social work, health care, rehabilitation

This inspired (1)

Pick a problem not a major - updated 2/27 insights and challenges
Pick a problem not a major - updated 2/27 insights and challenges

10 comments

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Photo of Andrea Zelenak
Team

Company Sponsored Colleges (Build on this idea) 

Hi Ahmed!
I was similarly trying to think of how this could be linked. Since the whole purpose of college is to get a job, 85 would make sense that the two would be connected. If you want to, you can check out my idea above to see if it gives you any more inspiration.

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Photo of Bettina Fliegel
Team

Hi Ahmed, Andrea Zelenak Isaac Jumba Kate Rushton 
"p2p University" is an interesting and expanding model of peer to peer learning using MOOCs that is being facilitated in pubic libraries and other public spaces. It is meant for all learners who want to take online courses together, in "learning circles." From their FB page: "In the past two years, learning circles have evolved from a pilot project with Chicago Public Library to a movement of educators, librarians, activists, policy-makers, and technologists around the globe…"

https://www.p2pu.org/en/https://www.facebook.com/P2PUniversity Do you think this model might be adapted to work places? Might employers facilitate and encourage this for their employees? I could see this as a tool for lifelong learning and/or using it to work towards a certificate or degree, depending on what organization/school offers the course.

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Photo of Isaac Jumba
Team

Just came across GoldmanSachs have such a program called Technology Apprentices: http://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/students-and-graduates/our-programs/emea-programs/technology-apprentices.html where students can work at the company at the same time earn a Computer Science degree

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Photo of Andrea Zelenak
Team

Wow, Isaac that's awesome! It would be awesome if all companies did this! Ahmed you should definitely look into it more!

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Photo of Andrea Zelenak
Team

I checked out a few of the courses on there and it sounds really cool. Even the idea of having employees create their own projects or initiatives through the courses.

It looks like this one gives out money for top ideas and sets up a meeting for implementation... that would be really cool to see people invested in their own work to come up with ideas and things like that after a course.
https://courses.p2pu.org/en/courses/2183/the-biz-playbook-how-to-be-an-entrepreneur/

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Photo of Ahmed yesuf
Team

thank you. i just looked at it and find it interesting.

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Photo of Isaac Jumba
Team

I like your way of approach to the challenge; Cost savings to institutions and companies. What's your take on the concern that the students also need to be all round, or be able to collaborate with other students from other fields? Will it mean students getting to work on different jobs to learn the different skills? And what would be the crteria for selecting the companies to work with?

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Photo of Ahmed yesuf
Team

thank you Isaac, i just read the links you shared on technology apprentices; it is highly interesting, and i am thinking of similar environment where workers can attend similar skills. eg in banking work environment lower staffs(secretary, cleaners, guards etc) can get possibility of learning other banking professions to realize their deam of being bank clerk, manager etc.

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Photo of Kate Rushton
Team

Hi Ahmed,

I really like the way your idea is bringing education to the students. Is there a link to Roundtable v0.02 ? How many students would you need in each workplace? Could you utilise some of the workplace-sponsored coworking spaces e.g. Google Campus or general coworking spaces that are attracting big companies such as WeWorks which now has GE employees? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-19/co-working-spaces-are-going-corporate

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Photo of Terry Hosler
Team

Ahmed and Kate,

Traditionally, most colleges require a minimum of 5-7 to justify the cost of the enrollment and instructor.  In this scenario, however, I wonder if the class is specific to the job or if of benefit to the overall value of the employee to the company, maybe the industry might invest in having a certified instructor who could be an adjunct instructor with the college with cost sponsored by the company.
 I think this links well with several posts especially Company Sponsored Colleges.

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