Good governance is better in MBO
The quality of the management of MBO institutions is improving. Nevertheless, boards have not yet optimally organized employee participation and the balancing of public interests.
This is evident from it recently published report 'Better, but good enough?'of the independent Monitoring Committee Sector Code of Good Governance in MBO. “The general picture is positive, but we see areas where things can be improved,” says Edith Hooge, chairman of the committee and professor of Education Management at Tias, Tilburg University.
89 percent of the schools account for the code in the annual report. Three quarters say they fully follow the code. “This was still a point in 2012,” says Hooge. "But boards do work on good governance and are open about it."
Taken seriously
The MBO sector has been working with a sector code for ten years. The code contains agreements about the way in which executive boards should act in the MBO sector and what the basic principles and responsibilities are for good governance. Hooge: “We can say that after ten years the code will be taken seriously and become more self-evident. A big step has been made. ”
Still, it can be better. “You can see this in the title of the current report. It is a grade that you give to a student who scores well, but who you know can do even better. Employee participation is and remains a point of attention, ”says the professor.
Participate
Especially the equipment of works councils could be better. Boards must support their works councils with information and training. In some places, boards already include their works council in the new decisions, but often the works council could be involved in new policy earlier. Hooge: “It takes two to tango. At the moment things are going well in some ROCs, but education-wide participation is lagging behind. The works councils are also responsible for this themselves. ”
The committee will publish another report in 2018. “The intention is that we, as a committee, will then consider new forms of co-management. Because often employee participation turns out to be vulnerable. ”
Question more sharply
Balancing public interests is another point for improvement. MBO institutions must pay attention to public and social interests and take into account the interests of their own institution. Sometimes you want to do something for students who are not yet progressing well, but that turns out to be difficult for the business community. Or about which courses you want to offer. “We say to schools: first map out which interests you can and want to meet. They need to think about it more explicitly. The supervisory boards should ask the boards more closely about this and help them with it.”
