Essays on the effectiveness of work-based learning and vocational education

The school-to-work transition gained a lot of attention in the last few years. The high youth unemployment rate is one of many reasons for this increase. Facilitating the transition is approached through many different channels, among them educational reforms. Various countries solidify the work-based learning and vocational education systems to ease the transition from school to work. Work-based learning and vocational education are associated with various short term benefits, such as a higher starting wage and a shorter job search at the start of the career (compared to generally educated individuals), but various researchers also suggest that there might be a trade-off. The benefits at the start of the career might be countered by a sum of disadvantages later in life. In addition, general competences and theoretic knowledge taught at school is, as indicated by many researchers, also very important (most certainly given the recent technological changes). We investigate the short and long term effects of work-based learning and vocational education. We analyze the influence of work-based learning (compared to classroom learning) on the development of key competences. In addition we investigate which competences, taught during the formal education, subserve the further development of competences and skills during employment. We investigate this by means of the LiSO data, Cedefop data and stated preferences experiments. Based on multiple (quasi-)experimental methods, we try to identify a causal relationship between work-based learning and vocational education and the labor market outcomes.status: publishe

Student Access to Apprenticeships: Evidence from a Vignette Experiment

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Het aanbod en de kwaliteit van werkleerplekken voor duaal leren: een onderzoek naar de determinanten

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Student internships and employment opportunities after graduation : a field experiment

Internships during tertiary education have become substantially more common over the past decades in many industrialised countries. This study examines the impact of a voluntary intra-curricular internship experience during university studies on the probability of being invited to a job interview. To estimate a causal relationship, we conducted a randomised field experiment in which we sent 1248 fictitious, but realistic, resumes to real job openings. We find that applicants with internship experience have, on average, a 12.6% higher probability of being invited to a job interview

Student internships and employment opportunities after graduation : a field experiment

Internships during tertiary education have become substantially more common over the past decades in many industrialised countries. This study examines the impact of a voluntary intra-curricular internship experience during university studies on the probability of being invited to a job interview. To estimate a causal relationship, we conducted a randomised field experiment in which we sent 1248 fictitious, but realistic, resumes to real job openings. We find that applicants with internship experience have, on average, a 12.6% higher probability of being invited to a job interview

Duaal leren in Vlaanderen: kansen en gevaren

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Motives for Innovation Co-operation – Evidence from the Canadian Survey of Innovation

In this paper we analyse the decision of firms in the Canadian manufacturing sector to co-operate on innovation projects. Our focus is on the motives behind this decision and the firm characteristics, both general and with respect to innovation activities, which influence the motives for innovation co-operation. Using data from the Canadian Survey of Innovation 2005 we find that the factors influencing the decision to co-operate in order to access external knowledge are very similar to those influencing cost-sharing motives. We also show that public funding leads firms to cooperate in order to access external knowledge and R&D