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

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.