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This chapter introduces the Dutch vocational education system and aims to foster an understanding of how it currently works. It describes and discusses the features of this system and the foundational issues that underlie it. Patterns of participation show the crucial position of vocational education in the overall education system in the Netherlands. It provides opportunities for supporting promising educational careers and positive positions in the labour market. The system design is to be without 'dead ends': everybody is supposed to leave the system with a fitting qualification. However, this design has proven to be less promising in its realization. Early tracking foreshadows pathways and makes some careers, if not dead ends, difficult, elevating the risk of dropping out. Five fundamental issues are highlighted when discussing the current Dutch vocational education system in practice in this chapter. Firstly, within a public frame, vocational education is a product of cooperation amongst various stakeholders. The specifics of the private-public frame are helpful for understanding the processes by which Dutch vocational education is uniquely shaped, and lead to its specific kinds of programmes and cooperation between schools and enterprises. The freedom of education concept comprises a second issue. Thirdly, tensions between accessibility and allocation to labour market and, fourthly, between educating for the short term and the longer term future are common to most vocational education systems, albeit manifested differently because of the national peculiarities. Fifthly, the current expectation for the Dutch public provision of vocational education contributing to lifelong learning of workers is a challenge for the future and, already, testing its capacity as a system to support this goal.

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The origins of, changes to and transformations of national vocational education systems arise through country-specific combinations of social and economic imperatives and changes, and the Dutch vocational education system is no exception. Like others, its formation and initial form arose from industrialisation but shaped by a specific complex of factors that arose at that time. Over time, crises or perceptions of social and economic crises have led to requests for change from the State, and social partners; representing the interests of employers and employees, and also local and regional communities. These crises have been associated with responsiveness to changing industry need, concerns about the quality of student learning outcomes, and the extent and kind of governance arrangements being enacted in the management of vocational education institutions and programs at the local (i.e. regional) level. In elaborating the particular complex factors that shaped and continue to shape the Dutch vocational education system, this chapter draws on the contributions to this book and other sources, to illuminate and delineate these factors. It progresses these outcomes by initially offering a framing through which to understand the dynamics of vocational education systems and as a means of comparing across such systems. That framing comprises: (a) historical context-institutional arrangements; (b) social-political-geographical factors; (c) societal sentiment and (d) how these specifically shape the purposes and form of vocational education. Overall, it is held that the particular quality of engagement amongst central agencies (i.e. government, social partners, as well as organization of schools that operate on national level (MBO-council, HBO council) and the locale in which vocational education provisions are enacted have come to and will likely continue to shape the form and purposes of this vocational education system. So, whilst the particular complex of factors is nationally-specific, the negotiations here resonate across other nation states.

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This book discusses how the Dutch vocational education system has undergone significant waves of reform driven by global imperatives, national concerns and governmental policy goals. Like elsewhere, the impetuses for these reforms are directed to generating a more industry-responsive, locally-accountable and competence-based vocational education system. Each wave of reforms, however, has had particular emphases, and was directed to achieve particular policy outcomes. Yet, they are more than mere versions of what had or is occurring elsewhere. They are shaped by specific national imperatives, sentiments and localised concerns. Consequently, whilst this book elaborates what constitutes the contemporary provision of vocational education in the Netherlands, it also addresses a broader concern of how vocational education systems become formed, manifested within nation states and then transformed through particular imperatives, institutional arrangement and localised factors.

Excerpt from publisher's website.

The contents are as follows: Part one, 'Introduction', contains the following chapter: Vocational education in the Netherlands / Elly de Bruijn, Stephen Billett, and Jeroen Onstenk (pages 3-36). Part two, 'Policies and organisations', contains: Vocational and professional education and lifelong learning / Jeroen Onstenk and Ruud Duvekot (pages 39-56); Transforming vocational education: encouraging innovation via public private partnerships / Marc van der Meer, Jan Peter van den Toren, and Tammy Lie (pages 57-82); Great expectations: VET's meaning for Dutch local industry / Anneke Westerhuis and Marc van der Meer (pages 83-102); Improvement of educational quality in VET: who is next? / Louise van de Venne, Marlies Honingh, and Marieke van Genugten (pages 103-118); Professional development of teachers in vocational education / Marcel van der Klink and Jan Streumer (pages 119-136).

Part three, 'Educational programmes: teaching and learning', contains the following chapters: A dialogue worth having: vocational competence, career identity and a learning environment for twenty-first century success at work / Frans Meijers, Reinekke Lengelle, Annemie Winters, and Marinka Kuijpers (page 139-155); The role and nature of knowledge in vocational programmes / Elly de Bruijn and Arthur Bakker (pages 157-174); Designing competence-based vocational curricula at the school-work boundary / Renate Wesselink and Ilya Zitter (pages 175-194); Pedagogic strategies for improving students' engagement and development / Truus Harms, Aimee Hoeve, and Peter den Boer (pages 195-218); Work-based learning (WBL) in Dutch vocational education: connecting learning places, learning content and learning processes / Jeroen Onstenk (pages 219-243); Assessment in Dutch vocational education: overview and tensions of the past 15 years / Liesbeth Baartman and Judith Gulikers (pages 245-266). Part five, 'End piece', contains: The Dutch vocational education system: institutional focus and transformations / Stephen Billett (pages 269-294). Show less