This evening on Radio 1, the Rector Magnificus of Utrecht University Bert van der Zwaan repeatedly stated that students should not be selected for admission to university programmes with a numerus fixus by a weighted lottery (gewogen loting in Dutch), but by looking at their exam scores in secondary education, motivation, and competencies to finalize the study and become a good professional (like a good physician). He stated that Utrecht University, in its University College, looks at these data for selection purposes (‘not a cheap procedure’), and that it reduced the drop-out rate from 25% to 10% over the last 10 years by this approach (‘reducing drop-out saves a lot of money’).

The ProDo research team and advisory committee met on July 3,  2012, to discuss the results of the programme on professional development of teachers in green education. Follow this link to get an impression of the meeting: meeting ECS Juli 2012

This week, from Wednesday to Friday, the Education Research Days (ORD2012) were held in Wageningen, organized by ECS and Stoas Hogeschool. With around 600 participants, more than 300 presentations, lively panel discussions and interactive paper presentations, prize presentations, and scholarly debates, it was a vibrant community. It was an honour to chair the organizational committee and the whole ORD. I thanks all who have contributed to it’s success, from administrative support to keynote speakers.
To get an impression of the ORD2012 go to the short video clip http://www.ord2012.nl/NL/impressie_ord2012/
For a review of what keynote speakers have said, go to http://www.ord2012.nl/NL/keynotes/
For a photo impression go to https://plus.google.com/photos/108846601745564448506/albums/5756719456754450305?banner=pwa&authkey=CKbRsLnF6tzR1QE

If you are an excellent MA or MSc graduate and interested in doing a PhD project in the chair group of Education and Competence Studies (www.ecs.wur.nl), go visit: http://www.wageningenuniversity.nl/UK/informationfor/PhD+programmes/Fellowships/

You are invited to propose projects for a WU sandwich PhD scholarship. The deadline for applications is September 7^th, 2012.  Send proposals to martin.mulder@wur.nl

The agri-food education system, also referred to as the green education system, in the Netherlands is often praised for its role in the success of the agri-food sector. For this reason, for colleagues interested in innovation in agri-food education, Hendrik Kupper, Ramona Laurentzen and I wrote a piece called ‘Recent Policy Developments in Green Education in the Netherlands’. It is published in the Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 121-139. Enjoy. Download the paper from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1389224X.2012.655966

Traditionally there is a lot of attention for the involvement of stakeholders in educational development, especially when it comes to vocational and professional education and training. At the European level, this principle is also observed. To what is extent were social partners in the agri-sector  involved in all kinds or educational issues. Read about that in Mulder, M. (2006). EU-level competence development projects in agri-food-environment: the involvement of sectoral social partners. Journal of European Industrial Training, 30, 2, 80-99.

Many publications in the field of competence-based education and training are conceptual of nature. There is little practical work which is based on empirical research. Therefore I wrote a piece with an applied nature which is based on the research we have been doing at ECS. The full reference to the article is: Martin Mulder (2012). Competence-based Education and Training. Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 305-314, June 2012. Link to the article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1389224X.2012.670048 As editor of the JAEE I hope to see more of these evidence-based practical pieces. Potential authors are invited to submit such work to the journal (angela.pachuau@wur.nl).

The article of Ester Alake-Tuenter, Harm J.A. Biemans, Hilde Tobi, Arjen E.J. Wals, Ida Oosterheert & Martin Mulder (2012): Inquiry-Based Science Education Competencies of Primary School Teachers: A literature study and critical review of the American National Science Education Standards is published in the International Journal of Science Education, DOI:10.1080/09500693.2012.669076

Today I visited the former Indan Residential School in Kaloops, British Columbia, Canada. It is now being used by first nations for various purposes. This school, and other residential schools, for aboriginal children were a tragedy for the first nations culture. Children were taken from there families and put together in the residential schools were they had to assimilate in the Canadian (western christian) culture. Residential schools were created at the end of the 19th century and existed until the 1970s. Various first nations people are actively working on retaining their cultures and are negotiating terms for self-determination, land rights and natural resource ownership. It is a harsh struggle that cannot be missed when visiting beautiful British Columbia.

Dr Renate Wesselink of ECS presented the ProDo program (on Professional Development of Teachers in Green Education) at the Annual Convention of the AERA (American Educational Research Association) in Vancouver, Canada. The emphasis in the presentation was on demand articulation, which was done using a Group Decision Room. Representatives of the green knowledge system were invited to suggest research themes, and a set of pre-defined research themes was rated and discussed. A distinction was made between representatives of green education institutions and knowledge centers which offer consultancy to these institutions. Based on the qualitative and quantitative results priorities were set for the research programme, which is now being implemented.