MBO (secondary vocation education) students are in the spotlight. Since the Brainport region will need many thousands of MBO graduates shortly to continue to function well, it is necessary to put this less popular vocational education in the spotlight in a positive way. This is why the Municipality of Eindhoven is now coming up with a good plan.
The image of vocational education could be much better. In the eyes of some students, an MBO education is not exactly something to be proud of. Students regularly get the feeling that they are looked down upon and disadvantaged.
“I hear from friends who are in the process of looking for a room, that they are rejected for places because they are on an Mbo course. This is very unfortunate,” says Charlotte Wever, an MBO student. Students experience unequal treatment at stores or cinemas, too. ”For example, you don’t get student discounts, because you don’t have a student pass, because you’re not a HBO or university student,” says Rens Brands, a Summa College student.
Inferior
That is why the municipality wants to make a plan to make practical education attractive again. They plan to do this together with the MBO schools, and the business community, but also with the students themselves. The goal is that at least they no longer feel inferior.
“For example, we often talk about intelligent minds and people who can do something with their hands,” says Eindhoven alderperson Monique Esselbrugge, who herself once started at the MBO. “I think that’s a very bizarre distinction because if you can do something with your hands you also have good intelligence. We have to get away from this distinction. Students deserve equal treatment.”
In the time ahead, it should become clear what is needed to catch up.
Source: Studio040
Translated by Chaitali Sengupta
