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Institute of Advanced Technological and Commercial Studies

Glossary

Work-study: learning by producing

Work-study combines periods in a company with periods of training. The job supplies the situations, the programme supplies the method, and each week spent in one illuminates the other. Two mentors follow the record, one in the company, one on the academic side.

Two settings, one learning process

Work-study organises the back-and-forth between a job and a programme. The workplace supplies real cases, with their constraints of deadline, budget and quality; the programme supplies method, vocabulary and perspective. Follow-up pairs a workplace mentor with an academic mentor, who compare observations on the same pieces of work.

  • The job supplies the cases, the programme supplies the method
  • Two mentors follow the record: workplace and academic
  • Work produced on the job feeds the programme's assessments

The rhythm of a work-study year

A developer in post follows the Web and Mobile Development programme on a work-study basis: the feature they ship at work becomes the subject of Friday's code review. An HR assistant follows the Human Resources Management programme the same way, bringing the real files from their department.

  1. 01

    1 — Three-way framing

    Student, company and academic mentor jointly set the assignments and the skills targeted.

  2. 02

    2 — Producing on the job

    Real assignments serve as the field of application, with their deadline and quality constraints.

  3. 03

    3 — Back in session

    The situations encountered are revisited in class: method takes hold on cases the student has lived.

  4. 04

    4 — Cross-validation

    The two mentors compare observations and attest the skills genuinely exercised.

Programmes best suited to it

2 catalogue programmes put “Work-study” to work: 240 credits and 2400 taught hours in total. The official rule holds throughout — one credit stands for 25 hours of work, 10 of them taught. Every line below is recomputed from the programme page: level, duration, credits, taught volume and fees in Guinean francs appear exactly as filed in the official catalogue.

ProgrammeLevelDurationVolumeFees
Web and Mobile DevelopmentBachelor's degree2 years120 credits · 1200 taught hours5 200 000 GNF per year
Human Resources ManagementBachelor's degree2 years120 credits · 1200 taught hours4 800 000 GNF per year
Work-study: learning by producing — Glossary | IHETC — IHETC