Abstract:

Higher education has always been a conservative environment, where education providers have seen their institutions as nuclear, the curricula being decided single-handedly, without much interference from the outside. The past decade, however, saw unprecedented changes in at least two directions. The first one is the outcome of the economic crisis, which has risen the necessity of the collaboration between business and academia in order to provide young graduates able to adapt quickly to the labour-market requirements.

The other direction is related to the advent of new technologies. This obviously challenges the traditional learning space and asks for a dynamic, flexible and collaborative environment, where students are given the choice and can make decisions.

Adapt2jobs is a European-funded project, with a view to adapting teaching methods and academic curricula to the labour-market demands. Its aim is to follow the above directions in higher education, by making use of the digital technologies, and by actively involving students in the decision-making process so as to assure relevance and quality of instruction. The commitment of the university is twofold: one to quality and the second to the job-market. While accountable to society to provide qualified, innovative and creative workforce, the challenge of the university is to maintain the balance between quality of instruction and market demands. To what extent are we teaching for the future? This is a question that only the students can answer; their assessment of our educational proposals is essential for a successful program. The benefit of the project is that the student is supposed to assess, make a decision and pass on his conclusions, getting aware of his/her responsibility not only for his/her own career, but also for his/her peers’.

The project outcomes should be seen as benchmarks for developing and implementing improvements in the existing curricula. Students and employers become partners with teachers in the process of adapting teaching/learning methods to present-day labour-market requirements. Students involved in our project are encouraged to explore computer-based learning and, at the same time, to self-assess their progress by taking continuous-assessment tests and to measure their learning effectiveness by taking a final test. University-Business Cooperation concept has gained a lot of attention today because both parties are interested in providing highly trained graduates. In this sense, the project sustainability is firstly meant to establish a well-articulated framework, which can make this cooperation work. Secondly, teachers will contribute to the development of the project sustainability through their constant involvement in adapting the digitized content of the courses to the latest developments in the field and also, in promoting the blendend teaching method among their peers. Thirdly, students are encouraged to share their learning experience with their colleagues, a new one to this ecosystem of education.

Keywords:

Accountability, sustainability, digitized courses, ecosystem of education, quality of instruction.