Help for MBO students in trouble
Preventing MBO students from dropping out. And if they do stop, help them towards another education or a job. That is the purpose of the almost 30 million euro subsidy for MBO aftercare. A look at the predecessor of the Graafschap College.
Image: Pixabay
Roughly 80 percent of the students at Graafschap College do not need extra help, says Debby Heltzel, coordinator of the labor market at this institution. “They roll fairly smoothly through MBO. Or quickly transfer successfully to another study programme.” Two out of ten students will get stuck at some point. Heltzel: “Our career square enables us to help 75 percent of the students we supervise find a job or further education.”
Since 2012, people who already have a diploma, but are not quite sure how to proceed, can also go to the career square. Heltzel: “In MBO there is still too much of the idea: I delivered you with a diploma, good luck with your life.” Seventeen parties - such as the regional reporting and coordination points for early school leavers, school attendance officers, social workers, but also employment agencies - are physically present on the square. In practice, it occupies a corner of the ground floor. No fancy design or colorful furniture, but just a school suspended ceiling, unobtrusive carpet and separate (consultation) rooms around a central part with desks.
In one of those consulting rooms, Roy van Aalst and Sabine van Dulmen tell what they are already doing and want to do extra with the subsidy for MBO aftercare*The education budget for 2021 includes an extra item of 29,5 million euros for MBO. The cabinet wanted this money to go to career talks with vulnerable young people. Last winter, 54 subsidy applications were approved by MBO institutions, including that of the Graafschap College, to better arrange career guidance and aftercare. For 2022, the subsidy for guidance to final-year MBO students has been absorbed into the 'corona envelope', writes outgoing minister Ingrid van Engelshoven in the latest budget. However, 10,5 million euros will remain available for MBO schools that tackle youth unemployment.. They are working together on two programs that should bridge the gap between education and the labor market: school-ex and the transition route. Van Aalst: “A typical ex-school candidate has already gone through quite a search with his mentor and dean. Ultimately, a certain expertise is needed, an extension towards the labor market or another move.” School-ex then helps to find other schooling. Or when making contact with the regional business community and when applying for a job.
Pdd-nos
The second programme, the transition route, is for former Wajongers: students with an obstacle or handicap. Nowadays they receive a so-called target group registration. This entitles you to help finding and keeping a job. The transition route makes customization possible at Graafschap College. For example, for a student with pdd-nos who followed training as a pedagogical employee. Mastering certain competencies was more difficult for her. “Think of paying attention or showing understanding,” explains Van Dulmen, who was, among other things, dean for pedagogical work & education students last school year. “But this student was very good at the rest. Still, she was told she'd better stop. I thought that was so sour.”
From the transition route, Van Dulmen looked for an internship for this student at a small daycare center with relatively few colleagues and parents. Her program counselor was deployed as a job coach to limit the number of changing contacts. “This way, the supervisor could be on the work floor more often and give feedback.” Just before the summer, the student received her diploma. “I think she also has a small job.
blow
Van Dulmen: “In recent years, colleagues have increasingly said about a student who got stuck: Well, then he should just discontinue the training. Even if that student was already in the third year. Then I thought: No, he's already so far. This must be possible.”
Help stands or falls with the motivation of the student. Van Dulmen mentions a boy who does want to work in childcare, but who showed up smoking weed at his internship. “He just didn't understand that he had to stop doing that. We've tried everything. When he indicated that he would just go to work, I said: I wonder if you're going to pick it up yourself. Perhaps you should give this gentleman a call.” She looks at Van Aalst: "Have you had contact yet?" Van Aalst: “If he wants, I can help him. It's not that far yet.”
Van Dulmen (left) praises her colleague's conversation skills. He never mentions the hindrances of a student. Van Aalst (right): “For example, I ask: What did you do for primary education? Special or special education? Then it may be that there is already a target group registration.” Image: Herman Engbers
Van Aalst mentions an example of a student who threatened to drop out at 'My school'. A separate route at Graafschap College where students can obtain their qualifications in a more playful way. “This boy learned at My social worker school, but wanted to give up. All he wanted was to become a bicycle repairman.”
There are quite a few initiatives in the Achterhoek with schooling vouchers, according to Van Aalst: “Especially in technology, which also includes the bicycle repair industry. Together we have applied for a personal training voucher worth five thousand euros.” This potential dropout now obtains Bovag certificates and follows a shortened training course at a bicycle repairer in the region.
Pitch
The Graafschap College wants to expand the programs with the subsidy money. The ROC has approximately 10 students. Last academic year, just under 350 students made use of school-ex and about 50 of the transition route. Van Aalst: “We also want to use part of the guidance from the transition route, such as job coaching, for ex-school students.” In addition, the application skills of the students are given a boost. This includes training teachers. Van Aalst: “The new form of applying for a job is, for example, making a video of yourself instead of a letter. Some kind of pitch. And don't forget LinkedIn. But a single student knows how to properly assess the value of this social medium. We want to change that.”
Deans are a separate group. Often we think we know everything
Van Aalst realizes: without registrations, the programs will not get going. That is why he mainly went out on the farm last school year. To get school ex and the transition route on the minds of deans and mentors or study career counselors. Van Dulmen: “Deans are a separate group. We often think we know everything. And there is already a lot you can use within the Graafschap College.” Why then Van Dulmen's enthusiasm for the career square? “Ultimately, I have limited contact with the professional field. Well when it comes to education and daycare centers, but beyond that it ends for me. Roy van Aalst has a much larger and broader network and knows how to address the people there.”
According to Van Dulmen, the average dean has also 'really didn't know much' about legislation and regulations, subsidies, funds and what municipalities do. Van Aalst: “And I can fully focus on that for forty hours a week.” Moreover, Van Dulmen particularly likes the fact that she can color outside the lines of the qualification file with the transition route. Van Aalst moves his hands from top to bottom: “If this is the line to get your diploma, then we occasionally go completely out of it with our students, to the left, to the right, and then back in. With the aim that they also pass the exam.”
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