Educating for Dynamic Vocations: A Guidepost for Responsive SVET

Abstract Context: A major challenge for contemporary Secondary Vocational Education and Training (SVET)is to enhance its responsiveness. Responsiveness can be defined as the ability of (teams of) educational professionals to interpret socio-economic and technological developments for curriculum development in terms of content and pedagogical approach. In the Netherlands, SVET-qualifications are developed on a national level by tripartite stakeholders (employers, union representatives and education). Based on these national qualifications, teacher teams in the SVET-colleges have to develop curricula. Research in Dutch SVET shows that the development of SVET-curricula is often a school-internal process with a focus on planning in terms of time and sequence (Hoeve & Van Vlokhoven, 2019). Actual co-makership with business partners is still a rare phenomenon. Approach: A consortium of six SVET-colleges and three research institutes started a collaborative interactive research project (Ellström, 2010). Interactive research is about the joint learning processes of practitioners and researchers which results in knowledge creation through co-development. The aim of the project was to develop a more interactive approach in which schools and enterprises are both actively involved in curriculum development. The central research question to be answered was: What are the characteristics of a responsive protocol that SVET teacher teams, in co-makership with their business partners, can effectively be used in the development of adaptive, vocation-oriented curricula? Representatives of 10 teacher teams participated in an inter-organisational professional learning community (iPLG). In the iPLG practitioners and researchers worked together on the design of a responsive protocol for curriculum development. Findings: The iPLG designed a tool (guidepost) for SVET-teams to organize for responsive SVET. In the tool, two agendas are combined: an explorative agenda and a developmental agenda. The explorative agenda comprises the trends ‘outside’: the developments at the labour market and in the professional field. The developmental agenda contains the necessary curriculum components. The agendas are interrelated since developments at the occupational level should resonate in the educational programs of the SVET-college. Conclusion: In the design of the guidepost, the significant characteristics of a responsive protocol are included. The guidepost can be used either as an analytical tool (e.g. which agenda elements are solid, which ones are we proud of; which ones need further elaboration) or as a tool to improve particular agenda items in order to increase the responsiveness of the curriculum. By implementing the tool in a team routine, SVET-teams will be able to monitor the quality of the responsiveness of their curriculum and make (small) adjustments on regular basis