Cooperation between school and companies so as to frame students' workplace activities: the case of a cooperative program in an industrial engineer school in France

Résumé En

Cooperative education is a pedagogical approach combining classroom-based education with practical work experience. This pedagogical trend is now widespread at a university level in France. Our presentation focus on a three-years engineer course which is organised in a cooperative mode (alternation of periods of 1 month at school and 1 month in a company). The overall aim of the course is to train engineers able to manage complex production systems and to improve them, in their various aspects (organisational, technical and economical). Within the workplace, the students' tasks and working conditions are not only defined by the company tutor, but must also be consistent with school recommendations. In this presentation we analyse how this engineering school collaborates with its industrial partners (companies which are engaged in this teaching ; program) on a pedagogical point of view. Our theoretical framework is based on the work of anthropologists like M. Douglas (1999) and J. Lave (1991) and French didacticians as Y. Chevallard (1992). Our methodology is based on two case studies. We have followed and observed two students' complete trajectories (3 years each) in two different industrial workplaces (pharmaceutical products; paper industry). Our case studies show that school recommendations often go against the social, technical and economic organisation of the companies. According to the specificities of the companies, students engaged in the cooperative program have developed quite different skills and knowledge in the workplace. These results point out that cooperation between schools and companies with the view to creating and managing training programs is complex. It ideally needs a strong mutual understanding, which proves difficult considering the specific constraints of each type of institution.