C.SOL, P.MOSON.

Two French organizations, the CNAM (a University giving an “on-and-off-the-job” training) and the Training Center for Apprentices (engineers) Ingénieurs 2000, provide professional training in which academic centers are closely associated with industrial companies.

Each year is divided in two sequences of six months: an academic sequence and a professional sequence; the duration of the overall training is three years. Ingénieurs 2000/CNAM welcomed the first apprentices in 1991. Now we have 450 apprentices.

The idea of the Hungarian adaptation of alternating education was formulated in the mid of nineties by I.Horvath president director general of the largest Hungarian enterprise (Dunaferr Ironworks). The CNAM offers the know-how of the training. An experimental project has been carried out at the Technical University of Budapest (TUB) with the participation of some other Hungarian, French and German institutions in the Framework of Phare HU-94-05 program « Strengthening the links between education and the economy ».

Four professional modules have been developed. The training was began at TUB in 1996, the total numbers of students involved is about 50.

In the papers we will present some aspects of our common experiments. We insist on several points: the management of the partners which is an important feature of our training methodology and the differences between French and Hungarian system.

1) The management of the partners: how to ensure a good partnership in spite of the heterogeneous actors (school, university, company or professional organization)? What are the exchanges between the actors (tutors, human resources services, teachers, alternation services)? If academic sequence and professional sequence have the same duration, is it hopeful to enhance the value of the training done inside a company, at the same level as the academic training?

2) The differences between French and Hungarian system are caused by the differences of economic environment and the relatively quick introduction of the alternative education. Hungarian apprentices preserve their student status; there is no special accreditation of the training; the students receive a « normal » university diploma.

We will conclude on the reality of a partnership which take part in a development of European alternating education.

Leading author: Charles SOL, Professor. INGENIEURS 2000/CNAM

5 boulevard DESCARTES. 77420 CHAMPS/MARNE France.

Tel : 33 1 64 80 66 01. Fax : 33 1 64 80 66 29

E-mail : sol@cnam.fr

Second author: Peter Moson, Technical University of Budapest

H-1521, Budapest, Hungary. Email: moson@ tutor.nok.bme.hu