BOOK REVIEW: Cooperative and work-integrated education: History, present, and future issues in Asia

“Cooperative and Work-Integrated Education in Asia: History, Present, and Future Issues” is a comprehensive edited book that explores the evolution and current landscape of cooperative work-integrated education (CWIE) in various Asian countries. Cooperative education (co-op), a well-established work-integrated learning (WIL) model, has been successfully implemented for decades across many countries in Europe and Asia. Despite its proven impact on a country's sustainability and economic growth, co-op education is not globally recognized yet. With its strong industrial base and history of success, Japan has implemented co-op education at a national level and has used the model to drive company universities in Thailand and the rest of South Asia. While these experiences provide useful teaching and learning cases, there is limited literature and research on the adoption and implementation of co-op education in industrial Asia. Edited by Tanaka and Zegwaard (2018), this book reports the state of the co-op and WIL environment in Asia, offering synthesis, analysis, and discussion on the present and the future of such a proven model. The content presented in this book is drawn from the input and insight of a vastly representative group of international researchers, educators, students, and governmental officials; a variety of publicly available reports and publications, and survey data collected from a broad range of Asian co-op programs. The findings would, definitely, help the Asia communities expand and reframe the conversation to address the key challenges, rethink the ways and means of contemporary workforce preparation, and create innovative strategies to better integrate working experience into student education to produce work-ready and skill-ready graduates.