Equality of Opportunity in Education and Training - Education and Training Policies - Netherlands

Women and Technology Action Plan 1995-1998

This plan was designed to encourage more girls and women to commence careers in engineering and technology. The Ministries of Economic Affairs, Education, Culture and Science and of Social Affairs and Employment fund relevant projects. The latest research findings under this plan suggest the following reasons for the under-representation of women in the engineering and technology industries:

• The fact that women are unfamiliar with technical courses and technological industries.
• The negative image of technical courses and technological industries in general.
• The fact that the organisation and culture of technology are difficult for women to enter.

In addition to the Action Plan, a 'techno-mentoring' pilot project, providing mentors to advise and assist women studying technical subjects, has been set up. Its purpose is to increase the number of women and girls opting for technical subjects and primary schools are being encouraged to incorporate technology into the curriculum.

This Guide of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science contains advice for professional 'image-makers' on how to identify and break down stereotypical gender images. Most of these image-makers are government information officers, professionals in the advertising and media industry and authors of official and academic publications. The guide applies existing insights on the development of male and female images to the work of these image-makers using texts and illustrations.

"Sparkling Opportunities" Equality As A Hallmark of Innovation in Education, Culture and Research

This policy of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science consolidates the principle of equal opportunities in innovations in education, culture and research. It states that the main theme for the coming four years is

" ‘equality as a hallmark of quality’ - a principle for which all have to take responsibility and which implicitly demands commitment. The process may be viewed as a series of links in a chain. Education is a vital link in the chain of every person's life, alongside, for instance, leisure work and relationships. The concept of links in a chain underlines the connections between these different areas of our lives. Education affects them all and has wider repercussions. The chain image also highlights the shared responsibility of the different actors involved. Education equips people with a range of useful skills, but it is up to the business sector to ensure they have the opportunity to use them. This is what gives the chain its strength, with the government taking its own share of the responsibility and urging other actors to do the same."

The policy identifies five themes relating to the issue of equal opportunity for the 1998-2002 period:

• diversity;
• life skills;
• learning to study;
• information and communication technology; and,
• management, advisory and administrative posts.