- 2016Implementation
- 2017Implementation
- 2018Implementation
- 2019Implementation
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Implementation
- 2022Completed
Background
From 2011 to 2016, career orientation and guidance in VET was promoted through the Incentives project in MBO (Stimuleringsproject LOB in het mbo), which helped VET schools cooperate to develop and implement career orientation and guidance, and resulted in a website subsidised by the education ministry with practical knowledge and tools.
In a 2015 letter on career orientation and guidance, the education and labour ministries stated that career guidance still deserved attention in education; they announced a follow-up letter about guidance in all education sectors (lower and upper secondary general education, VET and higher education). Despite much effort in recent years, improvement is still needed to support students in making an appropriate study choice, to professionalise teachers in career guidance, and to support transition from pre-vocational education to upper secondary vocational and higher professional education.
Description
In September 2016, the Secretary of State for Education announced in a letter to parliament measures to improve career orientation and guidance in general and in vocational education. The most important actions implemented were:
- in collaboration with stakeholders (e.g. sector councils, teacher associations, education institutions, the Expertise centre for guidance), competence profiles of school-based experts in career orientation and guidance were designed. An overview of career orientation training courses and training providers was also produced;
- as of August 2017, career orientation and guidance became part of the assessment carried out by the Inspectorate of Education on the quality of programmes in primary, secondary general education and upper secondary VET;
- a study undertaken by the secondary education council (voortgezet onderwijs, VO) assessed the feasibility of a cross-sectoral centre of knowledge and expertise on guidance.
In July 2017, a cross-sectoral Centre of expertise (expertisepunt LOB) on guidance began operating. It is based at the Council for upper secondary VET schools (MBO Raad) and aims to exchange information and good practice between all education sectors (primary, secondary general, pre-vocational, upper secondary VET and higher education) and to ensure efficient career guidance for students.
At the end of 2018, the Choose VET portal was launched and has been fully operational since then, offering comprehensive and updated information on VET programmes from both learning pathways, VET qualifications and their respective labour market perspectives. This digital portal has been developed by the Cooperation organisation for vocational education, training and the labour market (Stichting Beroepsonderwijs en Bedrijfsleven, SBB) in collaboration with the Council for upper secondary VET schools (MBO Raad), the business community and youth organisations on behalf of the education ministry. This portal aims to help learners in secondary education, their parents and mentors to make informed career decisions.
In 2019, a new measure was published describing the eight indicators of the portal. These indicators are: student satisfaction, schools' yearly results (percentage of successful students), progression to higher professional education (HBO), progression between the different levels in upper secondary VET (MBO), the chance of getting a job, the labour market position of graduates, the chance of finding an internship or apprenticeship and starting salary.
Learners found themselves in a difficult situation to orientate themselves on further education and career opportunities due to the COVID-19 pandemic as labour market perspectives changed drastically for several sectors.
The education ministry stated in a policy letter (February 2021), based on 2020 research, that guidance was well established in upper secondary VET and other education sectors. The Career guidance monitor (LOB) showed that in 2020 more VET schools (MBO schools) than in 2018 offered company visits and short-term internships (snuffelstages) as guidance activities. The use of other guidance activities did not change that much. However, the biennial satisfaction survey among upper secondary VET students (JOB monitor 2020) showed that VET students felt the need for better guidance and information when choosing further education or entering the labour market.
The policy ambitions described in this letter, aiming to improve career guidance, have three objectives. The first objective is to ensure that career guidance is a part of VET curricula by including good practice gathered and disseminated by the Centre of expertise for career guidance (Expertisepunt LOB). The second policy objective is to further foster permeability between education sectors (secondary education, VET, and higher education). Third, the policy aims to streamline the labour market information flow, especially towards learners with a migration background (who tend to be less well informed about the labour market opportunities of specific courses), in combination with preventing the labour discrimination that these students experience when looking for internships or jobs.
The measure is operational and runs as a regular practice.
The measure is operational and runs as a regular practice.
Bodies responsible
- Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
- Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment
- Cooperation organisation for VET and the labour market (SBB)
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers both to formal mechanisms of stakeholder engagement in VET governance and to informal cooperation among stakeholders, which motivate shared responsibility for quality VET. Formal engagement is usually based on legally established institutional procedures that clearly define the role and responsibilities for relevant stakeholders in designing, implementing and improving VET. It also refers to establishing and increasing the degree of autonomy of VET providers for agile and flexible VET provision.
In terms of informal cooperation, the sub-category covers targeted actions by different stakeholders to promote or implement VET. This cooperation often leads to creating sustainable partnerships and making commitments for targeted actions, in line with the national context and regulation, e.g. national alliances for apprenticeships, pacts for youth or partnerships between schools and employers. It can also include initiatives and projects run by the social partners or sectoral organisations or networks of voluntary experts and executives, retired or on sabbatical, to support their peers in the fields of VET and apprenticeships, as part of the EAfA.
This thematic sub-category refers to further development of national quality assurance (QA) systems for IVET and CVET, for all learning environments (school-based provision and work-based learning, including apprenticeships) and all learning types (digital, face-to-face or blended), delivered by both public and private providers. These systems are underpinned by the EQAVET quality criteria and by indicative descriptors applied both at system and provider levels, as defined in Annex II of the VET Recommendation. The sub-category concerns creating and improving external and self-evaluation of VET providers, and establishing criteria of QA, accreditation of providers and programmes. It also covers the activities of Quality assurance national reference points for VET on implementing and further developing the EQAVET framework, including the implementation of peer reviews at VET system level.
Supporting lifelong learning culture and increasing participation
Lifelong learning refers to all learning (formal, non-formal or informal) taking place at all stages in life and resulting in an improvement or update in knowledge, skills, competences and attitudes or in participation in society from a personal, civic, cultural, social or employment-related perspective (Erasmus+, Glossary of terms, https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/programme-guide/part-d/glossary-common-terms). A systemic approach to CVET is crucial to ensure adaptability to evolving demands.
This broad thematic category looks at ways of creating opportunities and ensuring access to re-skilling and upskilling pathways, allowing individuals to progress smoothly in their learning throughout their lives with better permeability between general and vocational education and training, and better integration and compatibility between initial and continuing VET and with higher education. Individuals should be supported in acquiring and updating their skills and competences and navigating easily through education and training systems. Strategies and campaigns that promote VET and LLL as an attractive and high-quality pathway, providing quality lifelong guidance and tailored support to design learning and career paths, and various incentives (financial and non-financial) to attract and support participation in VET and LLL fall into this thematic category as well.
This thematic category also includes many initiatives on making VET inclusive and ensuring equal education and training opportunities for various groups of learners, regardless of their personal and economic background and place of residence – especially those at risk of disadvantage or exclusion, such as persons with disabilities, the low-skilled and low-qualified, minorities, migrants, refugees and others.
This thematic sub-category refers to providing high-quality lifelong learning and career guidance services, including making full use of Europass and other digital services and resources.
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Guidance arrangements: Netherlands. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/lt/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/28446