Recruiting competence from vocational schools : paradise regained?

After a period of declining student enrolment, in 2002 Telemark University College (TUC) took advantage of vocational schools reforms to establish a three years bachelor programme in electrical engineering for a pilot class. The students of this class, all holding at least one relevant trade certificate, were presented a redesigned programme intended to produce an output engineer "at least as good as" the engineer graduating from an ordinary programme. After having evaluated and assessed the programme as well as student performance during, and after the first year of the pilot class, there are indications that the pilot class performs better than student groups recruited the ordinary way. However, there are still two more years to go before the title's rhetoric question "Paradise Regained?" finally and tentatively may be answered with a firm "yes".