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Concept
Cooperative education
Summary
Cooperative education (or co-operative education) is a structured method of combining classroom-based education with practical work experience. A cooperative education experience, commonly known as a "co-op" and sometimes known as a work study program, provides academic credit for structured job experience, and is taking on new importance in helping young people to make the school-to-work transition. It falls under the umbrella of work-integrated learning (alongside internships, service learning and clinical placements) but is distinct, as it alternates a school term with a work term in a structured manner, involves a partnership between the academic institution and the employer, and generally is both paid and intended to advance the education of the student.
The University of Waterloo operates the largest post-secondary co-op program in the world, with nearly 20,000 co-op students enrolled over three semesters in more than 120 programs.
While at Lehigh University at the beginning of the 20th century, Herman Schneider (1872–1939), engineer, architect, and educator, concluded that the traditional learning space or classroom was insufficient for technical students . Schneider observed that several more successful Lehigh graduates had worked to earn money before graduation. Gathering data through interviews with employers and graduates, he devised the framework for cooperative education (1901). About that time, Carnegie Technical Schools, now Carnegie Mellon University, opened and thereby minimized the need for Schneider's co-op plan in the region around Lehigh University. However, in 1903 the University of Cincinnati appointed Schneider to their faculty. In 1905 the UC Board of Trustees allowed Schneider to "try this cooperative idea of education for one year only, for the failure of which they would not be held responsible". The cooperative education program was launched in 1906, and became an immediate success, and the program was kept beyond the one-year allotted.
Official source
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