The aim of the study is to understand the meanings general upper secondary students (hereafter: gymnasium) in Estonian context attribute to their work experience and how students and employers perceive/recognise the interrelations between school and workplaces.

The rationale behind the study is twofold:

first, the share of students working alongside the school studies in general education programmes is growing in Estonia. Over half of students up to 17 years old worked during the school year (Ministry of Social Affairs, 2020) and over 60% of students had work experience outside the school, whether short-term, temporary paid work, voluntary work, family businesses etc. (Erss et al., 2024). 

secondly, while work experience of vocational students in formal vocational programmes is rather well addressed by researchers, significance of work experience of general education students in authentic work environments is rather underestimated.

Furthermore, gymnasium has traditionally been viewed as a gateway to academic education and preparation for university education; however, the question of how to establish a connection at earlier stages of general education between what is learned at school and the skills required in the labour market has become increasingly important (Education Strategy 2021–2035). The earlier studies have shown that practical work experience of general education students in authentic environments significantly develops skills that are important both in working life and more broadly in life, such as social, self-regulation skills and other generic skills. Such experiences also shape young people’s career awareness and competencies related to learner agency and therefore, makes easier coping with the  vulnerability of working life (e.g Billett and Ovens, 2007, Erss et al., 2024; Loogma et al., 2024). Nevertheless, the acquisition of these types of experiences largely remains outside the formal curriculum of general education and is weakly interrelated with and may remain invisible in the school. (Peterson et al., 2025).

However, the trend that more gymnasium students want to acquire work experience alongside the school studies reflect the wider learning ecology, emphasising that students in formal education programs learn in various ways in various environments (e.g Selliov, 2017), such as web-environments (incl AI), social media networks, museums etc being simultaneously involved in a complex set of institutions, interrelations, activities, and social actors (Weaver-Hightower, 2008). However, workplaces are continuously one of the most important learning environments in these learning ecologies, to cope better with the fragile, unsustainable world and in the world of work (Jackson, 2023).  At the same time, access to various learning environments can be uneven, depending on many factors, such as family situation, location, academic abilities and others that may create experience gaps and new inequalities (Barron & Bell, 2015).

We approaching the issue from the viewpoint of social ecology to understand better interrelations between school and workplace learning in the context of general secondary education emphasising on two main aspects: 1) students´ meanings of the competences they  develop at work and 2) interrelationships between learning at school and workplace.

Thus, the research questions are: Which competences and abilities general education students think they develop through work experience? How do students and employers perceive the interrelations between general upper secondary schools and workplaces?

A phenomenological approach and inductive thematic analysis were used to examine students´ and employers´ experiences on students´ learning at workplaces and the interrelations between school and workplace. The Sample consisted of 13 gymnasium students of both gender and various locations who have had work experience in authentic work environments. Most of the sample have looked at paid work independently outside the school and others students had work experience related to the school-based work practice programmes, such as work shadowing or possibilities to work in a selected workplace for a short period. The 11 employers involved in the sample had experience either with cooperation with upper secondary schools or recruiting students, and represented various fields of work and regions. For analysing qualitative data we adopted a method followed by a three-step qualitative thematic analysis (e.g., Braun and Clark, 2006; Braun and Clark, 2022), also known as conventional content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). First, we identified and coded data from the interview transcripts (sentences and/or phrases) that refer to the various meanings the students attributed to their total work experience as capturing its essence (Saldana, 2016, p.8). Second, we integrated the codes logically into smaller categories, and third, arranged the smaller categories and subcategories into broader categories or themes. Those categories indicated the patterns of meaningful factors students and employers identified in their experience. The ethical guidelines of Estonian Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2017) were followed. All participants were informed about the research, anonymity and data protection and they gave the consent to participate voluntarily in the research. All names used are pseudonyms.

The preliminary results of students´ interviews brought about altogether eight broader categories/factors emerged from the transcripts of the interviews with students and indicate the broad spectrum of capabilities students learn at work: (1) the significance of the previous work experience (incl work at home); (2) motivation: the initial motivation to earn some pocket money changed during the work and emphasise more to investing into the post-school future; (3) work tasks varied depending on the context of work from simple service tasks to complex ones, such as management tasks, requiring high level cognitive capacities; (4) skills and competences learned at work vary; generally, students may learn at work almost all general/key comptences of lifelong learning; (5) cognitive abilities; (6) what was comprehended and understood at work; (7) learning about the future: clearer understanding about possible post-school pathways; (8) the interrelationship between work and school learning; students perceive them as two separated worlds. The varied environment and working with different people, including clients in service jobs, provides a good basis for learning a variety of abilities, especially communication skills. In addition, work experience facilitates the students' understanding of work and working life, and prepares them for life in general. Importantly, the work experience helps them understand possible future career choices and post-school pathways. The interrelations between schools and workplaces remains at a formative stage and as a rule they involve rather sporadic or ad hoc possibilities for work experiences for students, underscoring the need for structured and sustained cooperation between educational institutions and employers. The study also revealed some institutional barriers hindering the systematic cooperation between schools and enterprises. So far, the interrelationships remain the initiatives of single schools and students are looking for temporary jobs themselves, via family and personal networks.

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