Kick off meeting TOI BLUE 3th december 2012 Career orientation and career guidance state of the art in education in The Netherlands

What is career orientation and career guidance (COCG) in The Netherlands COCG in education is about support pupils and students to discover their talents and ambitions and help them find a good place in futher education or employment. Who is responsible for COCG  secundary education, vocational education and higher education in cooperation with the labour market. Why is COCG important -To stimulate talent development -To stimulate individual learning pathways -To stimulate flow in education -To stimulate the labour market (economy) -To reduce early school leaving -To reduce swith between education programs -To reduce unemployment rate

Policy of COCG (1) Ministry of Education  COCG is important for economy and labour market but implementation of COCG is a responsibility of each individual educational institution. Ministry of Education started the project VSV (Early school leaving)  together with municipalities. The project is succesful but has a limited focus. Since august 2000 COCG has been financed by the lump-sum funding in secondary en vocational education. Nature, scope and quality, availability and accessibility are up to the individual schools. Education Inspectorate provides external validation of the schools quality assurace efforts. In VET the document 'qualification requirements career and citizenship’ is required. The career management skills (Kuijpers, 2003) are an important part of the document. burgerschap.htmlhttp:// burgerschap.html Boards of education set up career guidance stimulus plans for secondary education by council for secondary education (VO-raad) and VET by MBO Diensten tie-en-begeleiding-lob-fase-i http:// tie-en-begeleiding-lob-fase-i

Policy of COCG (2) Higher education  Netherlands Assciation of Applied Sciences (HBO-raad) and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) take steps to improve members performance. –Issuing binding recommendations (BSA) –Experimenting with individual study choice interviews –Setting up centres of excellence at five universities Active involvement with ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) and the ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ) is very limited. COCG in education is a matter of ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) at this moment.

Organization of COCG within educational institutes School vision, policy, quality and implementation is a task of each individual school or school department (VET and higher education) Often school counsellors (secondary guidance) are responsible for COCG. Lately they are assisted by primary guidance mentors. In lager institutions there are centralised and specialist departments (secondary guidance) for COCG. Tertiary guidance is outside the school (private providers). COCG activities and dialogues take place on critical moments of choice (fixed points in education): 1.sector selection in vmbo en profile selection in havo/vwo (secundary education) 2.before specialization in VET or higher education 3.before graduation (specialy in secondary education it isn’t final education)

Recent developments in dutch research Career skills (Kuijper, 2003) become more often a beacon in the field of education: -Reflecting on motives -Reflecting on quality -Exploring work -Managing career -Networking Lately institutions design a powerful career-focused learning environment (Meijers & Kuijpers, 2006) -practice-based, functional and real-life -Active, participatory -Reflective and dialogue In TOI BLUE the municipality of ‘s-Hertogenbosch takes an active part in stimulate COCG (rather unique for NL). Project ambition is to implement above mentioned research and developments.

Cooperation within COCG Regionally, secondary school and VET colleges work togheter in early school leaving projects (39 regional networks = RMC). Frequently COCG is part of these projects but the focus is still on youngsters at risk, not for all youngsters (there is still a network  promising connection?!) Cooperation within COCG is an important topic in the stimulus plans (higher education is involved) Generally cooperation within COCG is too fragmanted and not sustainable yet (depends on certain people or projects) Intention of TOI BLUE is to coorperate with the regional stakeholders of COCG (education and labour market)

COCG learning pathway Ongoing COCG learning pathways aren’t easy to find in schools. Mostly there are activities around critical moments of choice not continuously. Between different educational institutions and between education and the labour market ongoing COCG learning pathways are also hard to find. However at some critical moments of choice institutions set up projects together. The intention of TOI BLUE is to create strong ongoing COCG learning pathways (curriculum) in school and between different educational institutions/labour market. Startig point are the needs of pupils/students.

Professionalization of COCG The are no strict requirements for guidance counsellors and mentors. Is’s the responsibility of each educational institute to decide on the budget and time spend on professionalization. The focus of professionalization is on career conversation (dialogue) for both mentors and counsellors. No focused on COCG in curriculum Associations for school counsellors (NVS-NVL & VvSL) offer training and education Courses at Universities of Applied Science (Fontys & Saxion  Human Talent Development) and private providers. In the stimulus plan career guidance for VET professionalization is an important item (they offer a training career conversation)

Thank you for your attention. For questions related to this presentation send an to Marieke Baijens 