THE IMPLEMENTATION OF WORK-BASED LEARNING IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION STUDY PROGRAMS: THE CASE OF THE FACULTY OF ADMINISTRATION

In today's world, more and more people study and seek a higher education. The strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training, which was adopted in May 2009, set that by 2020 the proportion of the population aged 30–34 with tertiary educational attainment should be at least 40 %. The target includes all areas of society, including public sector and its employees. Across the EU-28, one-third (32.8 %) of the students in tertiary education were studying social sciences, business or law in 2012.

On one hand, researchers and practice claim that the vibrancy and productivity of the economy is unrelated to higher education. At the personal level, they imply that the likelihood of finding a job is largely unrelated to education. At the aggregate level, they deny that education benefits the economy, relegating its advantages to social and culture benefits. On the other hand analysis of Eurostat show that on average in EU 28 and also in each individual county, workers without higher education are more likely to be unemployed as those with at least some form of higher education.

However, higher education itself does not guarantee success. It depends how good it is. How much knowledge and (important in latest years) competencies does one gain. The challenge is how to equipped students with theoretical knowledge and understanding of real-life issues and at the same time, to enable them, to merge their knowledge with understanding and develop skills needed to efficiently act and participate as public employees as servants to the society.

The paper presents a model of educational programme block that tries to enable achievement of these goals. By sending students "out of the building" and meeting with real life situations, related to public services, they can use their theoretical knowledge, accessibility of literature and professors to develop competences and skills that matter. The model, developed at the Faculty of Administration in Slovenia, shows a possible integration of work-based learning in the curriculum of the study program and is based on the theoretical research of the filed, analysis of the student survey and interviews of public sector organisations and their human resource managers.