The Dutch constitution and related laws state that there should be freedom of education at all levels. This leads to the parallel existence of public and private educational institutions.

1997 European Union documentation gives the population of the Netherlands as 15,385,000.

Gross domestic product per capita is 19,920 and the workforce is broken up thus: 5% agriculture, 26% industry and 69% services.

Population	15,385,000
GDP per head	19,920Ecu

With regard to continuing vocational training as an element of the education system a distinction has to be made between publicly and privately provided continuing vocational training. Publicly provided continuing vocational training is strongly embedded in the educational system.

The apprenticeship system is used on behalf of initial and continuing vocational training for the (un)employed and there is part-time senior vocational education, which specifically aims at adults. At the same time adult basic education and general adult education fulfil, more and more, the function of providing adults with those skills and knowledge necessary to participate successfully in vocational training.

Privately provided continuing vocational training does, however, not necessarily mean training by private training institutes. Employers as well as individual employees can also make use of training provided by public institutes. Although there is a certain division of tasks and responsibilities with regard to continuing vocational training between government, employers and individuals, these divisions and boundaries are at the same time open for discussion and gradual shifts.

The government, for example, does take some financial responsibility for the training of the employed, while business and industry do, at the same time, take some responsibility for the training of the employed. In this respect, the continuing vocational training system in the Netherlands is certainly a 'mixed-model' system

Government distance training provision

Proprietary distance training provision

Distance training university

University levlel distance education

In 1996 these leading proprietary distance education institutions in the Netherlands decided to disband their long standing association (VISO) and to amalgamate with the association of private face-to-face training providers in the Netherlands in a new association called PAEPON. It is felt that this will give proprietary training providers in the Netherlands, whether at a distance or face-to-face greater leverage with the government.

Some of the leading distance training providers in the EU were members of VISO and are members of PAEPON. The levels of their course are extremely varied and includes university level programmes. Technologies include videotapes, floppy discs, compact discs and e-mail for assignment correction. The range of courses includes administration and accounting, marketing, advertising, commercial languages, information technology, secretarial studies, tourism, agriculture and medical professions.

Well-known institutions include Leidse Onderwijsinstellingen from Leiden with over 100.000 students, Koninklijke PBNA from Arnhem, founded in 1912 and now a part of Elsevier, with 40.000 and Eurodidakt, also in Leiden, with 30.000.

Public provision of further education courses at a distance in the Netherlands is subsidised by the State and usually organised by professional associations. For the purposes of this report the television academy, Teleac, with about 60,000 annual enrolments is included here as the State makes a contribution to its transmission facilities.

The Open universiteit is a clear example of an explicit Dutch educational policy of offering adults educational opportunities which have characteristics of both open provision and distance learning as understood in the Netherlands. The provision of second chance education has been an important national priority with 'open' institutions being established from school to university levels.

In Dutch, as in English, the conceptual difference is between onderwijs (education) and opleidingen (training), and the term 'learning' is not used in a logistic or institutional context. In Dutch the term 'open' has important philosophical connections. Above all it refers to the provision of second level evening classes for adults who had no chance to gain official diplomas in their youth because of the war or other circumstances. Thus the creation of an open school was seen as a most important development to provide second chance education for official diplomas for adults who had no chance in their youth.

The Open universiteit is therefore the final brick in a range of provision in the Netherlands that has the philosophical stance of adult second chance education. It therefore has no formal entry qualifications for its courses but provides official degrees for its graduates. Thus in Dutch the word 'open' has a historical and theoretical resonance but distance education is just a form of education - it is neither open nor closed.

The statistics for the Dutch Open University are presented differently in this report than previously. The statistic given for 1994 is about 60.000 (courses sold), the statistic for 1996 is 28.000 (students enrolled). The reason for this is a repositioning of the university by the Dutch government.

The background to these changes is a change in the law for financing of university students which led to the establishing in 1995 of strict controls on student subsidies. This led to a fall in the number of students enrolling at the 13 Dutch conventional universities.

In this context it appears that the Dutch government has decided to refocus the Open universiteit and encourage it to enrol students for full degree programmes, to emphasise throughput and the number of graduates, and to give the university a new task of training conventional university faculty in the use of open and distance methodologies.

It should be emphasised that with the refocusing early indications are that more modules are being taken by students than in the past, and early indications are that the new focus on primary degrees and the reduction of emphasis on continuing education has resulted in about 60.000 module enrolments, which was about the figure before the restructure.

Conventional universities

The Universty of Twente is a European leader in 1997 of WWW based provision and many Dutch universities are preparing courses for study on the internet

In summary the Dutch government is developing a policy under its present ministry of education to prioritize innovation in conventional universities, independent learning, flexible learning, open learning (in the British sense, not in the Dutch sense). Distance education and training are not seen as part of this agenda.

These developments will be discussed here in under three headings:

Innovation in conventional universities

The universities are encouraged to innovate, to use new media in teaching, to use the internet in teaching, to use interactive CD ROMs in teaching, to improve the quality of their education and to improve the flexibility of their educational offering. This is not seen as distance education or training. It appears that there is no priority on behalf of the government to deal with distance training and distance training is not on the agenda. The government prefers to speak of flexibility and competence-based education at university level on the British model.

The legislation proposes the construction of a consortium in 1998 for innovation in higher education, to be headed by the well known distance educator Dr. Coen de Vocht from the Open Universiteit in Heerlen. This consortium for innovation in higher education will be based on the concept that the Dutch government wants to use the expertise of the Open universiteit in its development over the last 25 years of distance education in the Netherlands. It is to promote a new flexibility, a new quality, a new quantity, a new competitiveness, a new competence and a new independence of the university sector education in the Netherlands

An interesting development in the new legislation is the mention of life-long learning for the first time in Dutch law and perhaps in European law. The concept of lifelong learning has been there -especially in the field of distance training - for over a hundred years. It had a period of political importance in the 1970s and early 1980s; in the late 1990s seems to be again achieving some degree of prominence and its insertion into the Dutch law is worthy of note.

The Open universiteit figures in the new order of Dutch higher education in the following ways. In the period 1996-'97 the Dutch government achieved what amounted to a downsizing of the Dutch Open universiteit. This was achieved by reducing the importance of second-chance education and of continuing education as a focus for the Open University. This means that the Open University must teach traditional content and traditional curricular for the 'doctoral' degree. Thus the adult education, rather left-wing philosophy, of the Open University when it was founded in the 1970s has been abandoned and has been replaced by an Open University with same status as the conventional universities but teaching at a distance. It also means that the special Open University 'doctoral' degree which was modelled on adult education ideas of the 1970s including small, short modules of distance education material has been abandoned, in favour of teaching of the normal Dutch 'doctoral' degree for official qualifications.

Open University

Distance education from conventional universities

The 1997 statistics remain the same as in 1996. There is no development. There is no government investment in distance training in the conventional universities, the universities are invited to innovate and to develop courses on the internet but this is not seen as pertaining to students who wish to study at home who do not partake in university life, traditional characteristics of distance training in the Netherlands

Government distance training

Proprietary distance education provision

The proprietary sector is in slight decline but they are favoured by new legislation which enables them to collaborate with conventional universities and other providers to provide distance education courses. It also enables them to compete at university level by the provision of their own distance training courses at university degree level.

1993-1994

1994-1995

1995-1996

1996-1997