Extra school year gives rest after VMBO diploma
The M-year of ROC TOP is for students who leave VMBO with a diploma and do not yet know what they want to do afterwards. A sort of gap year. Not to work or travel, but to find out at school: 'what can I do, what do I want'?
Picture: Fred van Diem
In classrooms 113-114, on the first floor of ROC TOP in Amsterdam-Noord, there are twenty-four students who have at least one thing in common: They have no idea. They don't know what they want to study, what they want to become, which way they want to go, what they are best at. Perhaps they tend towards the care side, or towards the technology world, but what exactly?
“I just don't know,” says Younes (18), who moves the hood over his head with his right hand. After pre-vocational secondary education, he started an MBO course for administrative assistant, level 3, but can't really remember why he made that choice. “I had to do something. So just that.” After four months he was gone, he was killing time working and sitting at home ('super boring') and now he's here, at this school, where he follows the so-called M-year and says he is in the right place.
I had to do something anyway. So just that
Gate
The 'M' stands for the first letter of the expression mind the gap. According to its creator, Elke van den Hout, the gap is the gap that pupils can fall into if they leave VMBO as sixteen or seventeen years old, have to choose a follow-up study (because minors, no basic qualification, so compulsory education) but do not yet know what they want or can.
“They are still very young,” she says in a small office adjacent to the school cafeteria. The idea arose when Van den Hout saw her own daughter Kee struggling three years ago in her senior year. “What am I supposed to do, Mom?” she asked regularly. Van den Hout: “In four years, secondary education was blown through, as if they are in a hurry with pre-vocational secondary education students. Kee was only 16 when she finished.” So a year of traveling was not possible, nor was a year of working to gain experience. Van den Hout, herself a communications expert, wondered whether her doubting, searching daughter was an exception. She started googling, asking questions. It turned out that her daughter was far from the only one. “A lot of children didn't have a fixed plan for after their exams.”
In four years, that secondary school was blasted through, as if they are in a hurry with pre-vocational secondary education students
Can't it be otherwise, Van den Hout wondered. She decided to write e-mails and was invited to a large dinner organized by the municipality of Amsterdam, where she met Christien van Dinten, director of ROC TOP. “I heard her talk about her plan”, says Van Dinten, “and I thought: it's for me”. She is - even if she says so herself - one of those school principals for whom nothing is too crazy or too new.
As she tells her story, she briefly looks out the window at the auditorium, which looks like a cozy coffee shop, including hanging plants, tables and a bar. “I've ordered cappuccino for us”, Van Dinten laughs, “but I don't know if that coffee will come soon. It is the first day for these students, they will investigate in the coming weeks whether the hospitality world is something for them”.
Choice
All right, the coffee will be coming soon, a student promises. Where had Van Dinten gone? Oh yeah. “I want to try everything. And here we also see that students are sometimes not yet ready for their choice. There's nothing wrong with that, but the downside is that they have to make that choice, maybe do something that doesn't make them happy, resulting in dropping out. Then see them get back into those school desks again.”
The M-year is for those students, says Van Dinten. And also for students who are in 3 or 4 havo, and think: I would rather go to MBO. Van Dinten counts on her fingers: “Orientate, learn, discover, taste, experiment. That is what we do." The year is divided into three parts, explains Van den Hout: lessons in the core subjects (Dutch, citizenship, English, arithmetic) and subjects such as philosophy, psychology.” These are normally only offered to HAVO or VWO students, but why can't MBO students philosophize, says Van den Hout. The second part is 'personal development', full of self-reflection: What do I want? What can I? Part three: career orientation, in which students learn which fields there are. This also includes internships. “Students go on internships together,” says Van Dinten. “Even if they don't like the field.” For example, last school year there was a boy - Van Dinten can still laugh about it - who was interested in refrigeration technology. 'Cool-what?' the rest of the class had said. Yes. refrigeration technology. And so the ten of them went to a factory where cooling systems are made. “They came back, all enthusiastic,” says Van Dinten. “And they also realized that within such a factory not only technical people are needed, but also people for communication, marketing, administration. A world opened up for them.”
Pilot year
Van den Hout still remembers it, because her daughter participated in that first pilot year, 2019-2020. Director Van Dinten applied for a subsidy from the municipality. And that was a puzzle, she assures. “Normally, you get funding for every student enrolled.” But the M-year was not an official training course recognized by the Ministry of Education, with an official CREBO number (Central Register of Vocational Training). “We managed to register the students for our other degree program via a detour, as a facility student,” says Van Dinten.
“We have been open about that. It was an emergency.” Van den Hout saw a defect in the law, went lobbying and emailed MPs whether something could be done about this. “They responded enthusiastically, after that I even went to The Hague with Christien,” says Van den Hout. “And then came corona. And then the fall of the cabinet.”
Back to start? A bit, they now have to try to facilitate financing for the M-year with a new cabinet, so that it becomes more attractive for other MBO schools to start the same type of orientation year.
music workshop
But they're not quite back to square one. “Things are going well here,” says Van Dinten. “Despite corona. The first year there were ten students, the second year, now 24. And we had to say no to dozens of students.”
We had to sell dozens of students no
Not to Joany (17), who will be having a music workshop with her classmates in room 113 for the next few hours. “I started doing havo after mavo”, she says when she takes off her headphones - they were just making beats. “I stayed twice and that made me insecure. How do I know that I can make the right choice now?” She hopes to see that doubt subside in the coming M-year. “It gives me peace of mind that the big choice has been postponed for a while. I know I want to move towards healthcare, but is that with people or with animals?” She is going to do an internship at a veterinary clinic.
Bizarre
Kai (16) was also "quite in the worry mode" when he finished pre-vocational secondary education. “We are so bizarrely young and we already have to make such an important choice,” he says. “I feel like I haven't had enough time to choose. I could go to HAVO, but I'm not a HAVO type.” What is he? He doesn't know yet. Maybe he wants to do something with sports. Maybe not. But: plenty of time, in the coming year, to find out. He grins. For now, he's just the M-year type. “And that feels good.”
Students with a VMBO diploma without a clear idea of what they will do later, ROC TOP offers a gap year at school. Joany (pink sweater) stayed in high school twice and became insecure about it. “How do I know that I can make the right choice now?”
