A major challenge for contemporary VET is to enhance its responsiveness. Changing technology (e.g. robots and ICT-applications) and societal demands (e.g. in health and social services) will not only change the content of work but also employment practices (labour market flexibility; self-employment; short-term contracts; Cedefop, 2016; SER, 2017). 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, VET-qualifications are developed on national level by tripartite stakeholders (employers, union representatives and education). Based on these national qualifications, teacher teams in the VET-colleges have to develop curricula. Research in Dutch VET shows that the development of VET-curricula is often a school-internal process with the focus on planning in terms of time and sequence (Hoeve & Van Vlokhoven, 2019). The limited interaction with labour market and enterprises is about organisational aspects (such as the duration of practical periods) but less about occupational content (Hermanussen, Verheijen & Visser, 2013; Cedefop, 2012). Co-makership with business partners is still a rare phenomenon. Furthermore, the time lag between qualification development and graduation of students is a problem: VET-students are trained for the labour market of the day after tomorrow, based on knowledge from the day before yesterday (Nieuwenhuis, 2013).
To tackle both issues, a consortium of six VET-colleges and three research institutes started a collaborative interactive research project (Ellström, 2010), funded by the Dutch Scientific Organisation (NRO-project 405-17-623/3736) in 2017. Interactive research is about 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 school and enterprises are both actively involved in curriculum development. Such an interactive approach requires a responsive protocol, which serves as a standard for a regular dialogue between school and work. In this dialogue teachers and professionals together should identify: a) significant current professional changes and developments, and b) typical work situations and processes that make up an occupational profile. This occupational profile is point of departure to develop the curriculum more in detail. The Kompetenz Werkst@tt (Gessler & Howe, 2015), aimed at to increase responsiveness in German vocational education, was used as a source of inspiration for such a protocol tailored to Dutch VET.
The central research question to be answered was: What are the characteristics of a responsive protocol that VET teacher teams, in co-makership with their business partners, can effectively be used in the development of adaptive, vocation-oriented curricula?
In the project, representatives of 10 teacher teams participated in an interorganisational professional learning community (iPLG). In the iPLG practitioners and researchers worked together on the design of a responsive protocol for curriculum development. Design discussions took place in the iPLG, as well as in the individual teacher teams (together with their professional partners). Design principles were derived from systematic professional dialogues, and innovative elements of the protocol were tested by the teacher teams and their occupational partners. The interactive research resulted in a guidepost for responsive VET development (digital version as well as hard copy). The guidepost facilitates VET teams to change their perspective on curriculum development from a mostly school-intern process towards a process in which the occupational world outside is deliberately included from the start. Besides, co-makership is encouraged.