The core goals of the Vocational Education Research Group revolve around the learning experience of students at vmbo (pre-vocational secondary education) and mbo (secondary vocational education) levels, and the guidance of that experience by teachers and trainers in the workplace.

Teacher training addressing to vmbo and mbo is very fragmented and lacks transparency. The teachers in (v)mbo are legally obliged to have the same qualifications as teachers in the first stage of general secondary education, but their role, task and expertise is different. For a number of specific vocational subjects, there are separate training programs and qualification routes possible. For the general subjects, which, however, in vocational education relate to qualifying for occupational practice, it is not the case. Until recently, regular teacher training for general subjects spent little or no attention to vocational education, while many of the bachelor graduates will wind up working in vmbo or mbo. To the quality of vocational education this lack of attention is not conducive. Strengthening vocational education has a direct relationship with increasing and maintaining the quality of the teacher.

During the first term of the research group programme even more attention is being paid to the design and quality of developing professional competence in the context of initial vocational education and the role of the educator (teachers, professional trainers). Attention is being paid by policy makers (international, national and local), by schools and institutions themselves (vmbo, mbo and hbo), the media and pupils and their parents. Knowledge about it is hardly developed by research institutions (universities or other institutions) and the available knowledge is not yet applicable to everyday practice in vocational education.

The research group wants to contribute to the development, validation and distribution of knowledge in order to improve the quality of vocational education. The research programme focuses on the questions what adaptive vocational education is, how it works, what effects it has, for whom and why?

The plans for the second term of the research group can be summarized as follows:

• a stronger focus on expertise both on critical, reflective work behaviour as well as using  available knowledge (about learning and guidance in vocational education.
• a stronger focus on issues about the quality of learning and guidance in vocational education in terms of  developing professional competence with a firm knowledge base and gearing to the heterogeneity of the student population.
• besides focusing on these issues in mbo (and possibly the vocational programs in secondary vocational education), a stronger focus on these issues in professional education (hbo) will be present.