CEED Program (Qld)

The original CEED Program was developed by the late Rowland Cearns in the Department of Communication and Electrical Engineering (from which the acronym CEED was derived) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and trialed in the Department from 1984-1987. It was designed to integrate industry-based training with mainstream undergraduate education, to better prepare students for their role in industry.

At RMIT, through the original CEED model, senior undergraduate students (with a certain level of academic performance for eligibility) receive extensive training for ~16 months (a combination of in-company and on-campus) and are guided through research projects, including work during the summer vacation period. Project costs are around $12,000 per student.

The original program at RMIT received external funding from the Victorian Education Foundation in 1998 that allowed consolidation at RMIT and subsequent expansion to other disciplines within the RMIT Faculty of Engineering and to other universities around Australia.

In 1989, the National Industry Extension Service (NEIS) introduced CEED to Western Australia with funding by the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce (DITAC). This funding saw the establishment of CEED at the University of Western Australia and the West Australian College of Advanced Education (later Edith Cowan University). The acronym CEED was retained as a trademark by RMIT and was used by other universities on the condition that they adhered to the guidelines set down by RMIT for the operation of the Program. About this time, the Program was renamed 'Co-operative Education for Enterprise Development' to retain the acronym and to link the Program with other forms of co-operative education.

The University of Western Australia adopted the RMIT model for CEED within the Faculty of Engineering and chose to operate the program internally with a part time coordinator from the Faculty appointed to manage the program. In contrast the West Australian College of Advanced Education departed from the model introducing short low-cost projects ($2,000 per project at the time), the program again being run internally. This resulted in large numbers of projects (est. 70 per annum) generated.