Abstract:

This research objective is to find out the best practice for applying the co-operative education into the creative industry. The study has been focused on the bachelor’s degrees in gems and jewelry program and fashion, textiles, and accessories program at College of Creative Industry (CCI), Srinakharinwirot University. The research has studied the process of students-advisor-workplace matching, the data of students’ work and research quality, and the evaluation rubrics from the workplaces and co-operative education process run by both programs. In addition, the co-operative process and achievement in pre-COVID-19 period, online system during COVID-19 and after the COVID-19 pandemic were compared. Then, the causes that impact the goal achievement of co-operative education in creative industry have been analyzed. This has brought to improve the co-operative system management. The system should be suitable for the creative industry.

During the pre-COVID 19 period, the program had faced the problem of system set up for numbers of students and workplaces. The study has remarked a difficulty to verify and match the qualified workplaces to students, advisors, and the research topics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, both virtual and in place working had been managed to maximize the research and working experiences of students. To enhance the procedure, the program committee would interview and discuss (online) with the expected workplaces on the purpose to find out the most suitable research topic for each company, and to match students and advisor to the workplace. However, the study has shown that, not only the online co-operative education has reduced the learning chances of students, but also students were lack of contact with their advisor. For the post-COVID 19 period, the gems and jewelry has followed the workplace interview process, but this time all students, who have learnt online for years, have worked in real workplace. Hence, as students were free to work and learn by their own during the COVID 19 period, so some workplaces might face the problem of communication, adaptation, and responsibility of students.

Either the co-operative education has been done online or onsite, the readiness of students and workplaces, matching system, advisory system, and evaluation system are major factors for the goal achievement of co-operative education. Regular cooperation between program and co-operative responsible should be set up. The challenge of the achievement of the co-operative education were the following student’s procedure. The research has designed a central co-operative education to cooperate among different programs. The result has shown that the program would like the central body provides the co-operative education’s information, documentary and organizes the meeting among program and workplaces. To solve the problem of lost contact students, this research has found that a meeting to clarify the roles of the advisor and mentor before start working would be necessary. Timeline and note distribution should be clarify to all parties and periodically repeated. The close monitoring is very important for students who need help. Once the system has been successfully set, the program could keep students in track and achieve the goal of the co-operative education. The result of this co-operative education system would not only improve the competency of students but also enhance the creative industry of Thailand in the future.

Keywords:

Co-operative education, work integrated learning, workplace learning.