CIVICUS

1
CIVICUS

• Citizenship in Dutch VET higher education

2
Objectives of the CIVICUS project

• Research
• Provide a professional manual
• How to organize service learning and
• citizenship education
• Best practice
• Technical aspects
• Organization activities

3
Aim of citizenship in higher (vocational)
education

• Promote the development of active citizens in a
  democratic society
• Citizenship education engender a sense of
• responsibility,
• interpersonal communication
• Independence
• Flexibility
• Problem solving
• civilized behavior
• imparting knowledge, fostering acceptance,
  willingness and ability of the community s
  social and political practice

4
Citizenship education is the goalService
learning is a kind of method

• Service learning combines
• (Community) work with academic learning
• Enhanced
• Critical thinking,
• Reflective thinking
• Civic responsibility

5
The attention for Citizenship education in the
Dutch education

• Increase of attention
• Important task for schools
• Qualification requirements of the labour market
  for modern employees includes good citizenship
• Requirements formulated as (citizenship)
  competencies

6
The educational Council distinguishes four
clusters of essential competencies

• Professional- competencies
• Learning- competencies
• Career-competencies
• Citizenship- competencies
• Economic citizenship- competencies
• Social citizenship- competencies
• Cultural citizenship- competencies
• Political citizenship- competencies

7
Underlying (didactic) concepts enhanced
citizenship education

• Integratieve formats for essential competencies
  including citizenship competencies
• Combining working and learning
• Problem Based Learning (PBL)

8
Definition of good citizenship in the Dutch
society

• The Education Council speaks of two frame
  works
• An official judicial form of citizenship
• Personal willingness and ability to be a part of
  a community

9
Citizenship in education

• Maintenance and transfer of norms and values are
  the tasks of social institutions
• Educational institution
• The media
• Volunteer organizations

10
Education

• socializing agent
• selection
• subsequently certify

11
Education with general objectives to implement
norms and values in

• the school culture (developing citizenship)
• the didactic and pedagogic actions of the teacher
• the didactic and pedagogic actions of the
  curriculum

12
Changes in the labour market and the relation
with citizenship

• specific knowledge changed to general and
  flexible knowledge
• a strong relation to citizenship
• (to become a good employee)

13
Vocational and Higher Education in the
Netherlands is determined by

• (political) social level
• labour market driven (economic driven)
• professional competencies

14
Changes in the educational system

• Broader qualifications (qualification and
  socialization)
• Subject content changing
• (Professional) competencies become the starting
  point for the curriculum

15
The organization of Dutch VET and higher
education and citizenship education

• Minimize the differences between education and
  practice
• Introduce competency-based education
• The didactic concept of CBL focuses also on
• Collaborative learning
• Meta-cognitive skills
• Authentic learning

16
Furthermore

• Other contributions to the didactic concept of
  CBL are
• Worked-based learning
• Problem-based Learning
• Authentic assessment methods

17
Summarized

• The answer of VET and higher education in the
  Netherlands to develop citizenship education is
  to present a curriculum that is characterized by
• Integrative presentation of citizenship
  competencies in the curriculum
• A context-rich integrated learning environment
• Formulated competencies (CBL) (consultation with
  business)
• Using PBL
• Workplace learning
• Authentic assessment

18
Barriers

• Our educational system is subject to criticism
  because of
• Commercialization of courses
• Professional knowledge is being eroded
• Approach has not been evaluated/ researched
• Its hard to objectively research and compare
  outcomes of the values of citizenship
• At this moment, a lack of interpersonal behaviors
  at school increase