Page 163 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

Chapter 6
6.3 Method
6.3.1 Research context
In the Dutch education system, secondary school students attend a level of education on the basis of their abilities. About one h of secondary school students follow the pre-university track that we focus on in this study (CBS, 2016b). Students who graduate from pre-university (which takes six years) are allowed to enter university. In 2014, 80 per cent of all pre-university graduates directly entered university (CBS, 2016a); many of the remaining 20 per cent entered professional higher education, which means a change in learning environment that is comparable to the transition to university (e.g., more independent study, fewer contact hours). Moreover, some students take a gap year a er graduating from secondary school and then attend university. Accordingly, university preparation is in theory a central goal of pre-university education that is relevant for the vast majority of students.
In the Netherlands, a national curriculum prescribes the learning content for all school subjects that students must master. Students graduate if they pass the mandatory national examinations in their nal year of secondary school. e Inspectorate of Education keeps a close eye on students’ results at each school, and average examination results are publicly available, suggesting the substantial accountability attached to these examinations. In contrast, there are no guidelines for or evaluation of university preparation. Schools must have a career guidance programme, but each school can make its own decisions about what form this programme takes (SLO, 2016). Guidance counsellors in each school coordinate the career guidance programmes and advise individual students about their choices. In some schools, consultations with the counsellor are mandatory, whereas in others, students pursue the consultations on their own initiative. In response to some recent criticisms of career guidance in Dutch schools, from August 2017 onwards, the Inspectorate of Education also evaluates schools’ career programmes, as part of the basic quality criteria they must meet (Bussemaker & Dekker, 2016).
Admission to speci c university degree programmes depends on a student’s secondary school coursework. For example, to be admitted to a science degree programme, a student must have completed science coursework in secondary school.
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