Cooperation of stake holders in the Dutch VET system: what can be learned andapplied from the experience of the establishment and development of regionaltraining centres ROC’s in designing the regional VET partnerships in Lithuania

Louis Spaninks, TALENTIS BV, the NetherlandsVidmantas Tūtlys, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research,University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 10-12 September 2008

(EERA/VETNET)

Abstract

The Dutch model, with government, social partners and other bodies involved inconsensus building, has provided a framework in which the labour market has been mademore flexible and, at the same time, has recognised and met the needs of disadvantaged groups. One of the distinguishing marks of Dutch vocational education and training is avery high level of regionalisation and decentralisation resulting in education and training institutions with relatively much degrees of freedom as to human and financial resources. For this and other reasons the case of the regional cooperation and partnership in establishing and development of the regional training centres (ROC’s) canbe useful source of know-how in the establishment and strengthening of the regional VET partnerships in the other countries, including Lithuania. This paper examines the possibilities to apply the experience of ROC’s for the establishment and development of regional VET partnerships in Lithuania.

Establishment and development of the regional VET networks or regional partnership and cooperation structures require to analyze and to use the experiences and practices of the other countries in this field, especially those countries, which areadvanced in this field. The use and application of the experiences and practices of onecountry to another often poses difficult methodological problems. Potentialimplementation of the measures in the field of the regional VET partnerships andnetworks transferable from the Netherlands require to make certain necessary adaptationsof the current VET system of Lithuania and their elements. These required changes candiffer from one implemented measure to another, as well as the duration of these changesand their implied economical and social costs. We will analyze what changes in the fieldof VET (legal basis of the VET, institutional structure of the VET system, public fundingand co-funding of the VET, relationships between the initial and continuing vocationaltraining, involvement of the social partners and stakeholders in the different fields of VET - designing of VET curriculum, training provision, organization of practicaltraining, evaluation of learning outcomes) have to be done for the application of theexperiences of the establishment and development of the regional training centres – ROC’s in the Netherlands assessing the time span required for these changes and their implied economical and social costs.1

Presentation of the transferable measure:

co-operation and partnership between the stakeholders and social partners in the development of the regionalvocational education and training centers (ROC’s). This case of ROC’s was selected for this analysis because it presents the example of the one of the most developed andsuccessful outcomes of the cooperation and partnership of the stakeholders and social partners in the vocational education and training on the regional level. Besides, the caseof the establishment and development of the regional training centers ROCs provides alot of useful information and know-how for the development of the regional VET partnerships in the other countries, including Lithuania.

VET in the Netherlands and the place of the regional training centres ROCin this system.

In the Netherlands, traditionally about two-thirds of vocational trainingstudents participate in school-based VET (‘middelbaar beroepsonderwijs’ or MBO),while one-third undertakes an apprenticeship. In addition, there were a variety of schoolsfor adult education. There were different laws applying to each of these types of education and training, and separate schools that delivered its school based component.Since the late 1980s, however, a continuous reform process has evolved to improve andintegrate these systems. It culminated in the new Vocational and Adult Education Act(‘Wet Educatie en Beroepsonderwijs’ or WEB) that took effect on January 1

1996. In part, the act intended to improve the operation of the VET market throughdecentralisation and deregulation (Ministry of Education Culture and Science, 1996;VanHoof, 1998) and establish a more flexible system. As an example it decentralised variousresponsibilities from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to the new regionaleducation centres (‘regionale opleidingencentra’ or ROCs). Those ROC’s themselveswere formed through mergers between different vocational and adult education schools ineach region.The goal of the WEB (the Act) was to achieve ‘a self-regulating system in whichthe various actors in the field of education are in balance with one another’ (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, 1996: 5). The WEB lays down the basic rules, procedures, duties and rights for this system and the actors within it, in a similar way asthe BBiG does for the German apprenticeship system, which again makes ‘security’ theother side of the coin to the afore mentioned drive to make the system more flexible.The WEB does generally provide more flexibility - more room to manoeuvre,more options to choose from - to the various actors in this field than the Germangovernance regime for the VET market. To begin with, Dutch apprenticeship before theWEB era had already been more flexible than its German counterpart in some ways. The1969 German BBiG constitutes apprenticeship contracts as a separate type of contract,which is concluded for the duration of the training period. Apprentices are consideredworkers, but they (and their firms) have particular rights and duties spelled out in theBBiG. In the Netherlands, Dutch apprentices tended to have a so-called training-labour agreement (‘leerarbeidsovereenkomst’), but this was not (nor is) in effect one separatetype of contract but a combination of a separate labour contract with a separate trainingcontract. The training contract and its main conditions (but not the labour contract) at thattime in the Netherlands were defined through an Apprenticeship Law (and today throughthe WEB, cf. below); labour contracts were (and are) defined through collective bargaining at a sector level.2

Around 1969, training contracts for Dutch apprentices (for the duration of thetraining period) were quite routinely combined with labour contracts for an unlimited period. So at that time, Dutch apprentices tended to enjoy more formal job andemployment security than their German counterparts, whose employment with their training firm was and is only secured for the length of their training. But in the early1980’’s, rapidly rising youth unemployment led the social partners in many Dutch sectorsto agree upon a deterioration of the labour conditions for apprentices. Some sectorsconfined the duration of labour contracts they gave apprentices to the training period;others (such as metalworking) went one step further and no longer coupled the trainingcontract to any labour contract at all. Hence, in this respect more flexibility occurred inthe Dutch apprenticeship regime. But due to Dutch labour market reform, the other sideto this flexibility was or was at least intended to be enhanced security. Firstly, theaforementioned measures were intended to make apprenticeship positions available tomore youth, and in particular to weaker groups among them that at that time were unableto find one. Secondly, the state and the social partners undertook other measures toachieve this goal. The state subsidised apprenticeship, and so did the social partners inmany sectors by creating training funds for their sector. In addition, many sectors (such asmetalworking and construction) organised local training partnerships(‘gemeenschappelijke opleidingsactiviteiten’ or GOA’s) that formally employ theapprentice and place them with one (or more) member firms that perform (parts of) theactual work-based training component. And third, as of 1979, the state sponsored shortMBO courses, a school-based alternative to apprenticeship for those youth who couldn’tfind an apprenticeship position.The WEB implied further flexibility of the Dutch VET market as compared to itscurrent German counterpart. In Germany, there is hardly any viable alternative for apprenticeship training, neither for firms, nor for youth that do not enrol in higher education. Within the German apprenticeship system, the room for choice is basicallynarrowed down to picking one of the approximately 360 training occupations. With fewexceptions, there are no different qualification levels distinguished within economicsectors. In the Netherlands, the WEB currently distinguishes five types of programmes atfour different qualification levels. Sector-specific bodies (‘landelijke organen voor het beroepsonderwijs’ nowadays named Knowledge Centers) developed skill standards for allthe programmes in their sector. Each programme is governed by one set of skillstandards, which is referred to as an ‘exit qualification’. Jointly, these exit qualificationsand skill standards are referred to as the ‘National Qualification Structure’ (NQS). Eachexit qualification can in principle be achieved through one of two pathways:1. A vocational training pathway (BOL; in fact the continuation of MBO, primarily school-based, but including a work-based [so-called internship] component of at least 20%)2. An apprenticeship-training pathway (BBL including a work-based componentof 60% or more).So even if one has chosen what exit qualification one is interested in, one canchoose between two alternative ways to acquire it. Firms can thus choose to perform themajority of training themselves (apprenticeship pathway) or limit themselves to a smaller work-based (vocational training pathway); and students can decide whether they think amore school-based or more work-based alternative best fits their current needs. In3