Sandwich Training in Higher Education as one Major Strategic Axis at the Heart of the Attractiveness of a Territory : Some Lessons Learned from the Pioneering Example of the University Institute of Technology Corsica

Cite this Article as: Christophe Storaï and Laetitia Rinieri (2014)," Sandwich Training in Higher Education as one Major Strategic Axis at the Heart of the Attractiveness of a Territory: Some Lessons Learned from the Pioneering Example of the University Institute of Technology Corsica", Journal of e-Learning and Higher Education, Vol. 2014 (2014), Article ID 292497, DOI: 10.5171/2014.292497 Research Article


Introduction
A new and much-hyped concept in the economics literature has now emerged into a major strategic thrust for regions in fierce global competition to capture and secure geographically-mobile investment: attractiveness, or regional branding.In this environment, the challenge of cohabiting a two-pronged policy of sustainable development and regional branding requires coordination across several fronts, where early-stage tech entrepreneurship,, and human capital feature high on the list of critical variables.Regional branding is the new paradigm to create jobs, boost inward investment into industry and services, unlock the international marketplace and gain access to new technologies.Winning potential investors is therefore,, a major objective for any regional territory, regardless of its development stage (Michalet, 1999).Territorial attractiveness hinges on a series of location-related assets that are made capital by the fact that firms will only locate to sites that can bring competitive advantage.Businesses are receptive to a specific destination-branded offering that maps out the locational advantage, and on the lookout for specialist skills and local know-how.The attractiveness criteria for a regional brand go way beyond differences in 'natural' factor endowment.
Here, public services policy plays a pivotal role in leveraging success factors for place branding, notably through education and vocational training,, and through R&D backing.Regional-entrepreneurial dynamics can only be progressively engineered.The process starts by improving the quality of the business environment, after which the second step is to meet the needs expressed by potential investors.This is where educational training strategies are a particularly key factor for spurring the availability of skilled qualified human resources,, and unlocking innovative highpotential entrepreneurship (Marchesnay et al, 2006).Extending on this idea, entrepreneurial ecosystems built on the competitiveness clusters model founded on core tech research, and engineered with SMEs enrolled in the governance framework,, offer a potential source of sustainable regional-level structural planning and development (Veltz, 1997;Colletis & Pecqueur, 1996).The process ultimately impels the existence of a competitive web of local enterprise.The relationship between Stanford University and Silicon Valley offers a telling example of the positive externalities of a cooperative tech research/training strategy match-up.
Corsica is an island economy marked by the complete absence of any of the big multinationals that fuel and forge the worldwide economy.Equally absent are any of the kind of medium-sized enterprises servicing big business that have spearheaded local economies in other regions like Lombardy.Corsica's economic fabric is essentially made up of small and home businesses, farm smallholdings, artisans and small-scale retail.Given how public-sector capital investment is already hypertrophied, the private sector looks like the only viable option capable of triggering a dynamic regional development impetus.It would necessarily entailss coordinately forging a duel strategy of training up human resources,, and engaging a technology research process aimed at increasing the needed island-wide competency levels to national and international competency standards frameworks.
Leading the way, the University Institute of Technology Corsica, Corsica University's affiliated school of applied vocational technologies, is demonstrating its ability to act as a structurally engaged facilitator of island-wide spatial planning and regional branding.As a founding pillar in pioneering the emergence of a sandwich-course training system in higher education in Corsica, in 2010 the university made its entire training curriculum fully accessible to all through the signature of apprenticeship training or vocational qualifications agreements.This grass-roots programme is the outcome of a committed core strategy to develop partnerships with the island's key social and economic communities (businesses, community groups and local authorities), and it plays a fundamental role in shaping,, and selling the most vital valued assets that typify a regional territory,, emerging into a structured destination-brand identity (simultaneous growth in the employability and quality of school-to-work transition shown by its human capital, mass shift in the degree of skill acquisition directly tied to the regional territory's own organic needs, fluidity of knowledge transfer fully controlled through sandwich placements, deep sustainable entrepreneurship education, and so on).

It is precisely,, this University Institute of Technology
Corsica sandwich-student school-to-work transition issue, reframed as pivotal to local regional development strategy, that this paper aims to highlight as a real-world example of how to deal with specific constraints facing a small-island economy.

University Institute of Technology Corsica, Pioneering the Development of a Sandwich-Course Training System in Higher Education in the Corsica Region
The IUT of Corsica faculty created the very first apprenticeship 'section' in Corsicaregion higher education, back in the 2001/2002 academic year.Originally, targeting just one professionally-oriented undergraduate course (the University Technical Diploma ['DUT'] in Business and Administrative Management) enrolling 12 students, the initiative hived off into every single course curriculum on offer.i The dynamic momentum engaged by this bridge to the business world sparked the creation of Corsica-region University Placements & Careers Service [CFA UNIV] tasked with handling the promotion, development, and administrative-educative-financial management of the sandwich-course system at the University of Corsica.
At the start of the 2012/2013 academic year (September 2012), the University Institute of Technology Corsica counted 150 sandwichplacement students (i.e.25% of student enrolment at the faculty) ii representing 54.4% of students going through the University of Corsica-led sandwichplacement scheme, and 30% of sandwichplacement students in Corsica-region higher education as a whole.

Sandwich-placement Training in Higher Education as a Shaper of the Regional Vocational Development Programme
Corsica offers a case-in-point example of an areal region characterized by an ageing labor force, making it necessary to re-align midterm regional vocational training strategy in response to this inescapable reality.As a major lever of local-regional development and social regulation policy, the island's vocational training system has to re-adapt its offer to achieve the targeted job-to-training fit.Continuing professional education, and the sandwich-course system (apprenticeships, sandwich-course internships) are therefore, the two core strands of the same policy platform designed to structure and build the competency levels, qualifications and employability of the employed and unemployed labor force a given territory.
With commentators touting the knowledge economy as the only way out from endemic economic crisis, the University Institute of Technology Corsica has taken a pro-active role by engaging in a process to structure a consolidated, sustainable socio-economic fabric though optimized management of its vocational training/information, guidance services and tailored careers support system.The faculty, thus works in close collaboration with the CFA UNIV, which leaders the annual survey 10 specifically geared to sandwichplacement students (monitoring school-towork transition figures for sandwich-course leavers (graduated or not) in March the following year)._____________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Christophe Storaï and Laetitia Rinieri (2014), Journal of e-Learning and Higher Education, DOI: 10.5171/2014.292497

Ministry-Sponsored Surveys on the Transition-to-Work of University Institute of Technology Corsica Graduates
For this purpose, a specific survey targeted at measuring school-to-work transition by University Institute of Technology Corsica, students were adopted as a performance instrument, but also to provide statistical support to predictive policy building on directions; that future vocational training efforts should take in order to fill human resources gaps in the Corsican socioeconomic fabric.This predictive strand is a crucial factor, as the analyses produced are designed to guide the political (CTC) iii and institutional (the University) decisionmakers in their coordinated effort to roadmap a vocational strand of Corsicaregion higher education geared to localspecific factors and variables.
The analyses developed are built around nine core focuses: • The professional status of the sandwich-placement student Stemming from the University of Corsica's ministerial accountabilities (nationally-coordinated regional-scale survey led by universities offering a broad-spectrum vocational development curriculum), Corsica-region local government (CTC), simultaneously exercising its mission to promote regional apprenticeship schemes iv , and its mission to validate the map of regional-scale coverage of training programmes vV , commissions the University of Corsica (via the CFA UNIV) to annually provide tangible figures on graduation rates, and school-to-work transition record to inform and shape political policy decisions on the island's Regional Vocational Development Programme ('PRDF').This tool, wielded by regional government, informs mid-term regional vocational training policy, and the aligned coordination of the vocational training paths on offer.To forge the plan, the CTC relies on active input from the Corsica's educative, economic and social community networks.

Close-up look at the school-to-work transition record of sandwich-placement students leaving the University Institute of Technology Corsica in 2011 and 2012 vi
The University Institute of Technology-Corsica vocational curriculum courses surveyed illustrates five core activity areas representative of university teaching, opened up to directly fill gaps in the islandwide socio-economic fabric.

Figure 9 :Figure 10 :
Figure 9: Salary Brackets of Job Contracts Held By Sandwich-Course Leavers i) Examples of the kinds of jobs held by sandwich-course leavers• Sales representative; • Accountant; • Research officer; • Project site supervisor; • Laboratory technician; • Construction superintendent; • Network leakage technician; • PR assistant; • Customer support assistant; • Risk prevention engineer...