Origins
The debate about the need to change the educational model began in 1999/2000. The debate was about the characteristics the educational model must have to be capable of tackling new challenges. Various individuals from Mondragon Unibertsitatea -around 40- designed the framework project in the 2000/2001 academic year.
Subsequently, the collaboration of various social agents was requested in order to diagnose the situation. The following agents participated, among others: companies educational centres, gropus of experts, teachers and ex-students from knowledge areas related to the qualifications.
The process ended with the creation of the professional profile. Therefore, the creation of the profile of each qualification was the result of a broad social consensus and rigorous work.
The profile includes the following skills:
- specific skills: technical and methodological, that is, knowledge and know-how
- personal skills: knowing how to be
- socail skills: knowing how to coexist
Skills that the students must develop during the training period.
In addition, Mondragon Unibertsitatea will aim to demonstrate various transversal values and skills that help to differentiate the professionals trained in their community from the rest of the professionals.
In the 2000/2001 academic year the phase of the professional profile was completed and in the following year (2001/2002) work was carried out on developing the curriculum.
The study plan was redesigned based on the professional profile. The strong points were discovered and initiatives were prepared to improve them. At the same time, a group of experts worked on the application of methodological bases in order to develop the curriculum; for which case they took into consideration those universities with innovative educational projects, of which we can highlight:
- Aalborg in Denmark
- Maastricht in the Netherlands
- The Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico
- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
To finish, they identified the necessary methodologies to define the profiles: methodology based on the development of the projects, methodology based on problem solving and that based on case studies.
All of that work has been accompanied by a broad training plan, specifically, by a plan developed in universities such as Aalborg of Europe and Maastricht. At Mondragon Unibertsitatea they have also been carried out regularly, but with the backing of the selected institutions and experts.
In the 2002/2003 academic year, besides continuing to work on designing the curriculum, the project was developed in various qualifications. During the subsequent years of the project it was gradually extended to other qualifications.