Deans under pressure, the right choice of study is increasingly important
The rapid changes in the range of courses and the higher costs of a study are increasing the pressure on the choice of the right further education. Schools need professional counselors. Can the counseling service and teaching still be combined?
The rapid changes in the range of courses and the higher costs of a study are increasing the pressure on the choice of the right further education. Schools need professional counselors.
Can the counseling service and teaching still be combined?
Subject teachers who do the counseling are often overloaded. This is what educational researcher Marie-Christine Opdenakker argued in the Dagblad van het Noorden earlier this year. Intensive supervision of students is essential and this requires a lot of knowledge and skills, says Opdenakker. After all, the range of courses on offer nowadays is very large and changes quickly. Many students still make the wrong study choice. Opdenakker advocates specific training for deans.
“It is indeed important that schools devote a lot of time and attention to the counseling service,” says Fieka Kerkhof. She is dean for the 650 students of HAVO and VWO at the Pax Christi College in Druten, for three days a week. In addition, she has no other tasks within the school. Twenty-five years ago she trained as a career choice advisor at Fontys in Tilburg. The demand for full-time deans was small at the time. That is why she worked as a counselor in the employment sector until she was able to work as dean at Pax Christi College in 2003.
Hectic
“Being a teacher and dean is too much for one head of people,” says Kerkhof. She sees it with fellow deans in the circle of deans she is a member of. “As a teacher, your priority is to teach and you already have a lot of organization and administration to do, you have to coach and guide students and keep up with your professional knowledge. As a dean, you have to keep abreast of all changes in higher professional education and university to be a good point of contact for students. In addition, students feel more pressure about their choice of study because studying has become more expensive, registration has to be done before 15 January and it is not always clear whether you can get a job with a particular study. They come to me more often. Work has become more hectic. ”
Fontys students work on assignments on DeDecaan.net under the supervision of the mentors. In it they build up a portfolio that they can take with them to their further study. In the third grade, all students take the LC-Data career choice test. In the upper years, they can take the Holland Typing personality test on request. A student can talk to the dean at his own request or on the reference of the mentor.
Confirmation
Dean Lobke Allersma notices that students have a greater need for advice and confirmation. "The decentralized selections not only look at numbers, but at motivation and extracurricular activities in which they can show their qualities." Allersma studied Human Resource Management at the Academy for People and Labor and has been working as dean for approximately 900 HAVO and VWO students in the upper years of Bonhoeffer College in Enschede for the past five years. The mentors are the first point of contact, on request students can talk to the dean.
In many schools, the deans are also teachers, which was always the case at Bonhoeffer College. I am only a dean and I am very pleased that I can fully focus on that.
Allersma is also a board member of the Association of School Counselors and Career Counselors. The association offers a course for starting deans. Many of the students have not followed specific training, but do the counseling as an extra task, for example. "We think it is very important to contribute to their professionalization." She personally finds it important to guide students in such a way that they can make their study choice with confidence. "They should not focus on that one choice, there are sometimes several ways to get somewhere."
Benefits
'A solid career and professional orientation program that supports and motivates our students', is one of the objectives of the Teylingen College in Noordwijkerhout. Els Houwaart is an economics teacher at this school and combines this with the deanery. She sees advantages of this combination. “In most schools, a dean is also a teacher. The advantage is that you are close to the students, because you also meet and speak to them as a teacher. I like that. " Houwaart works 36 hours a week. She teaches 9 clock hours a week and has also been dean since 2008. She trained as a dean at the APS, the institute for educational improvement that was defunct last year, and she takes refresher courses at the NVS-NVL educational association, for example about having conversations with parents and students. Information is also shared in the Leiden circle of deans in which she is involved.
Until last year, Houwaart served the 1650 students at school together with a fellow dean. This colleague has retired as dean, and Houwaart is now training two new colleagues, who will also follow the basic module deanery. All students complete assignments through the online program Qompas. “The pupils can easily express their ideas here. As a dean, you also have a quick insight and overview, more so than with the paper booklets that students filled in earlier. ” Houwaart and her colleagues cannot see all students. "We do address them in class and our aim is to speak at least to those students and parents who request an interview or are referred by a mentor."
Busy job
She also notices that more calls are being requested these days. In addition, it takes time to keep abreast of all the changes in MBO and higher education, she says. "As a dean, you also want to be there at the crucial moments of choice of subjects and internship in the third year of the mavo." Can it be done? "It's a very nice, busy job."
