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Modern industry is increasingly knowledge based. Companies have to be innovative to survive in the face of world competition. Much new knowledge, particularly that relating to aspects of industrial applied science, is generated and often kept within an industrial context. New graduates have to gain familiarity with this material before they can be effective in industrial employment. Tertiary institutions have adopted a number of techniques in attempts to make industrial knowledge and experience more available to students. These include offering applied science courses incorporating industrial guest lecturers as part of teaching programmes, performing laboratory exercises on industrial sites, setting industrial case study exercises and visiting industrial sites as field trips.

Co-operative education provides another effective method for capturing the educational resource of the work-place. It is particularly useful when the industrial enterprise provides access to equipment or techniques that can not be reproduced easily at an educational institution. The BSc(Tech)/MSc(Tech) programme at the University of Waikato has been designed to optimise this advantage at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Show less