Practical question, good. I strongly believe training course including field training are quite useful. Such trainings help students to know and understand ground realities which is not possible by sitting in furnished class rooms. And more over, after all, a learner/student has to face the real world so it is better to train them during their training period at institutions.

@Nasser Abdellatif, you are right, companies are always reluctant to give such training. One of the reasons may be lack of resources as you mentioned @Nasser Abdellatif. And the other one is the fear of brain drain after training them.

Training course and particularly field training is a must for a lot of scientific fields

Training courses are conducted to increase information, improve skills, and change attitudes.

Dear @Nasser, I think that all majors should seek field training; this has a positive impact on the interaction between the students and the future work place.

Will the answer is somehow general. Training could be beneficial and at the same time could be useless especially in dynamic-turbulent environment.

The qeustion is not whether training is useful or not, but how useful. This must be assessed against resources in terms of time and money.

I acted as Workshop Practice Coordinator in my school in the late 1990s. I took Aerospace Engineering students to a training college to learn and pratice all sorts of basic manufacturing techniques. This took a whole week and students did learn useful things. However the cost of ferring students and paying their supervisors was high. Later we found a nearer place. This new place provided a little less training but on the whole was good value.

Well you cannot know how useful it is unless you know if it is useful OR not first!!! In your response you provided an example that is related to a specific setting (manufacturing techniques). However, the question is more general. Is field training needed in all majors? and what can be done to improve student training?. The answer depends on the context, surrounding environment, and the nature of the field.

It depends on many factors including faculty members experience and the level of their qualification.

The question is not whether training courses a useful or not, but how to manage them . How do we make sure that good filed training is provided in a situation where the number of trainees may be overwhelming for companies.

There is hardly any emphasis needed about the value of training courses (internships or field training, as they are commonly referred to in India). My personal recommendation to industry leaders is: please make in-house training of students of relevant disciplines from colleges/universities in your locality as part of your CSR initiatives.

Building a skilled and knowledgeable society for tomorrow is not merely the concern of parents and teachers. It is from today's students that the industry would draw its employees tomorrow. By voluntarily giving them exposure you are just making sure that you get the right candidates for your own needs. By incorporating this into CSR (and I definitely recommend some form of stipend or remuneration, call it scholarship if you want), you will be spending your money earmarked for generating goodwill (after all, that is the prime purpose of CSR) for a socially useful cause. I can hardly think of any other better manner in which the industry can earn the good will of the society.

As academics, I think we need to drive this point home to all the industries that we come in contact with. I do hope the industry takes a note!! Have a great day.

Trainings are necessary and useful if the trainees are involved sincerely in it, or else it may be a waste of time, energy, money and manpower.

@Nasser, field training courses are very useful and they are obligation for majors due to Bologna system of education in my country! Very often, the programs for field training courses have been done and often changed jointly, by companies as well as by Universities. The impact of companies is high, we do create people to work in these companies! The most of demands that comes from Companies are built in training programs! "Most European countries now face the common challenge of

providing all future employees with the knowledge and skills they will need in a knowledge-based economy, with its emphasis on flexibility, adaptability and competence." Fine article is attached!

I agree with Kamal.

Communications skills are very important.

At the same time, these days we habe to learn new technology systems every day.

So, to sum up, I think training courses are necessary.

Training is a major requirement for accreditation and is becoming fundamental to all fields. It is mainly conducted at the beginning of the senior year, whereby the student has developed an advanced level of academic maturity.

Training requirements should be set upfront and need to identify the following:

1- Identification of the training institution and soliciting its approval of the trainee.

2- Stating the period of training; e.g., 8-weeks.

3- Setting up the training objectives.

4- Identifying the tasks to be performed during training.

5- Delineating the training learning outcomes.

6- Submitting a training report.

7- Presenting a training defense before an academic jury.

Training makes a man perfect. Each and every level , training is much more essential.Even, i think, in case of university teachers, they need training to become a good teacher.

In most universities, there is a trainingprogram regarding developing the performance of academicians. This training program is for new academicians and usually takes one week.

Dear Kamal:

Indeed, in Faculty of Engineering at AUST, there is a Training Coordinator whose responsibilities is to monitor the training of the students and pay regular visits to the training institutions all through the training cycle, which extends beyond the 8-weeks of actual training.

Concurrently, the trainer in the training company has to fill up a training booklet on a weekly basis indicating the student's progress.

All these measures, including the ones mentioned in the earlier answer, ought to channel the training program into a meaningful task.

Dear all,

The benefits of students' field training depends not only on the training providing company, but also very much on the students themselves. At ACK, we began to encourage students to combine (part time) field training with their capstone projects (final year projects). As a consequence, they tend to take their field training more serious and their projects become "more real".