For the 8th time in a row Wageningen University has been chosen the best university of the Netherlands by the Study Guide Higher Education of Elsevier. The programs in the social sciences which score at the first and second place nationally, are the following:

1st place: Applied Communication Science (82/100 points)
1st place: International Development Studies (72/100 points)
Shared 1st place: Health & Society (78/100 points)
2nd place: Economy & Policy (70/100 points)
2nd place Management and Consumer Studies (66/100 points)

All who are involved: congratulations!

Martin Mulder is appointed in the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute Technik und Bildung (ITB) of the University of Bremen.

The ITB (itb.uni-bremen.de/index.php) is an education and research institute within the University of Bremen. The institute offers Bachelor and Master degrees in science and technology teaching and conducts research in the field of 1. labour related learning processes, 2. job performance processes and vocational education, 3. international vocational education, innovation, and industry culture, and 4. learning, teaching and organisation. The ITB is the leading research institute in the field of technology and vocational education in the German language area and runs various international research and development programmes in the field of vocational education.

Finnish education ranks #1 in Europe. Teachers not only in secondary but also in primary education need university education. The profession of teacher is appreciated very much and there are many more applicants for teacher education than there are places. This is what Erno Lehtinen explained in the VPRO TV programme Tegenlicht. Teacher education is embedded in the university and teachers get a university degree. There is no educational inspectorate. Teachers are autonomous, of course within national regulations.

ECS supports curriculum development for JKUAT and HPTC in Kenya . The Kenyan management project representatives visited ECS and the Hortifair.

Continue reading Kenya project management representatives visited ECS and Hortifair – November 1+2 2013

The paper ‘The Role of Entrepreneurship Education in Developing Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions’ by Saeid Karimi, Harm Biemans, Thomas Lans, Martin Mulder and Mohammad Chizari (September 27, 2012) (available at SSRN – the Social Science Research Network as: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2152944 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2152944), made it to the top 10 most downloaded papers in its specialisation. Congratulations Saeid Karimi.

 

There is a vacancy in my group for a Personal Professor Life Science Education Research. For further information see:

Continue reading Vacancy Personal Professor Life Science Education Research

On September 18 I presented the first research review on vocational education and training. It is based on the papers of the VETNET program at the ECER in 2011, and various selected journal articles which appeared in the same year. Eline Roelofs did the basic work for the review.

Based on the review and extensive experience with VET research we can say that VET research has grown and that colleagues in European VET research are in a vibrant community and in a collective learning process.

Despite attempts to thematically structure VET research, it is still to a large extent fragmented. There is little convergence of theories and there are many mini-theories, there is little consensus about definitions, little operationalization of concepts in the direction of practice, research results are not binding for practice, and there is a huge divide between research technical quality and relevance of VET research.

Until now there is no literature that addresses the main components of VET in a comprehensive way, amongst which the VET system, VET administration, VET policy, management and organization of VET schools and training sites, VET curriculum development, learning and instruction in VET contexts, VET media and testing, and VET teacher education and professional development.

Research priorities we see are aimed at improving VET vocational teacher education and professional development, reaching demotivated youth in VET, prevent drop-out of  VET, HRM in VET, competence modelling and assessment in VET, entrepreneurship and education provided by VET, innovation education in VET, and the relationships between the corporate, national and individual perspective on VET.

In terms of research policy development and general VET research planning we strongly believe that research should address pressing and relevant problems in educational practice, and practical, policy-oriented and fundamental research studies should be combined to solve these problems. It would be quite detrimental for both research and practice if the field of VET research would continue to be fragmented.

The paper can be ordered by sending an email to me. The suggested citation is: Mulder, M. and E. Roelofs (2012). A Review of Vocational Education and Training Research and Suggestions for the Research Agenda. Paper presented at the ECER Conference, 18 September, Cádiz, Spain.

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