Work based learning for construction management courses

Some criticisms of work based learning have raised the issue that such learning as essentially an employer focused activity intended to train an individual for a specific role in an organization. In this sense the organization (employer) has benefits to gain from the process which are perhaps greater than the individual. The academic perspective of education per se is that it is a social good, for the benefit of the individual, and for the benefit of the society in which that individual is a constituent. The paper reports the initial experiences of staff, students and employers on a BSc (Hons) Construction Management course which incorporates a period of assessed industrial experience. The assessment of this experience uses the competence framework provided by the Chartered Institute of Building Professional Development Programme as its basis. This paper claims that the incorporation of the Professional Competencies as a frame of assessment addresses this issue. The competencies are vocational in nature and have been developed to reflect the needs of most employers involved in construction. Furthermore, the Professional Institute in its' charter, has to reflect the overall social good of the activities of its' members. These activities are in turn reflected in the competencies described in the PDP.