Internationalization in Senior Secondary Vocational Education in the Netherlands

Abstract

The Netherlands is a country with an open economy that relies on foreign trade and is hospitable to refugees and immigrants from all over the world. It is the second highest export country in the EU; one-third of Dutch employment depends on export; of a total population of 16.8 million, 3.5 million inhabitants have at least one parent born outside the Netherlands. It is often said that every Dutch citizen has connections to “internationalization” in his or her lineage. Because of this tradition and being a member of the European Union, the Netherlands fully supports and benefits from the internal EU market, in which European citizens are free to live, work, study, and do business. The VET sector in the Netherlands embraces the tools EU is facilitating to support an open market for learners and workers; however, internationalization is not limited to the EU alone. Focusing on internationalization in senior secondary vocational education in the Netherlands and presenting recent Dutch data set against EU benchmarks, this research found that internationalization in this sector involves both so-called internationalization at home and transnational mobility. This chapter also considers the influences of EU’s internationalization practices on the Dutch senior secondary vocational education sector with regard to students’ development of intercultural competency, foreign language learning, virtual mobility, outbound and inbound mobility, and the promotion of study visits and student exchange.