Widening The Dutch Teacher Training Portfolio With A New (Short Cycle) Practice Trainer Suite: Improving Enrollment Figures And Pedagogical Competence Across Vocational Skill Levels

In this paper the authors present an educational solution to counter the lack of technical trainers in Dutch vocational education and in-company environments. In the Netherlands, thousands of challenging jobs for hands-on vocational graduates are waiting to be filled-in, whereas the number of (practice) trainers essential to accommodate for the training of these technical prospects, lag behind. The part of the higher education system, designated to the training of teachers, has not been able to provide a solution for this problem. Authors indicate that the problem at hand is complex, multilevel and extends to the coverage of adequate numbers of technical trainers over the different (higher en lower) vocational skill levels. Authors propose to widen the Dutch higher education teacher training system with a new (short cycle, EQF-5) practice trainer programme, which is able to deal more effectively with the challenge. From a macroeconomic perspective, the challenge for the new programme is to draw sufficient numbers of new (technical) trainers. From a pedagogical perspective, the challenge is train the new trainers in such a way that they are able to educate different types of vocational students: obtaining competence and coverage over different vocational skill levels. In the paper, the main requirements are discussed and different parts of the proposed training programme explained. Authors draw conclusions from their experience with the delivery and evaluation of the practice trainer programme, an official associate degree (2 year) programme.