An analysis of alternation schemes to increase student employability and the smartness of secondary schools

Abstract

In this contribution, we report on the outcomes of a project that aimed at comparing high quality alternation schemes that have been designed to reduce the mismatch between the skills demanded by the job market and those that can be developed nowadays attending either high or vocational schools. Despite the differences among schemes and experiences that have been investigated, we have detected an overall positive level of the student satisfaction, either in the cases of projects designed for small groups of students and for massive alternation schemes. A critical analysis of the experience allowed to identify commonalities and criticalities and to extract a set of guidelines and recommendations on how to improve the alternation schemes and satisfy the expectations of all actors (students, companies, family, schools) and, thus, to increase the smartness of the educational processes and, as a consequence, that of the schools.