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So far, only a few schools in secondary education (havo/vwo) have opted for profiling and further development of beta education or for making exact subjects central to the school profile. To encourage schools to profile themselves as beta schools and pay extra attention to the nature and level of exact subjects in order to increase the inflow and outflow towards beta, the Beta Technology Platform has established the Universum Programme.
By promoting exact subjects, the Platform aims to demonstrate that these subjects are broad in scope, applicable everywhere, and provide comprehensive preparation for beta / technology-oriented higher education. At the core of the Universum Programme is the school's own institutional policy. The underlying idea is that schools that work towards an integrated approach to education in exact subjects provide students with enough good background to make realistic decisions. A Universum school opts for extra attention to beta subjects, not only for these subjects individually, but also for good coherence between these subjects, both in lower and upper levels. Other key elements of Universum schools include addressing the diverse needs of different groups of students (girls, havo/vwo) and emphasising encouragement (as opposed to selection) in beta education.
The Platform aims for approximately 20% of all schools in the Netherlands to eventually choose a beta profile. With a view to a flying start, an initial tranche of 35 schools has been approached which are already active in renewing their beta programme, achieving good inflow results for NT and NG profiles, or have made significant progress over the past years. Out of the 35 schools invited to participate in the Universum Programme, 29 schools have ultimately indicated interest in participating.
Dialogic has been asked by the Beta Technology Platform to assist in the organization and setup of intake interviews with the first tranche UP (Universum Programme) schools, provide documentation of these interviews, and propose a way to monitor progress in the UProgram. The goal of the monitor is to establish a baseline measurement which includes: the initial situation of the Universum schools; the focal points in the Universum Compass where these schools place emphasis; how financial support is utilised; the expected (and, where applicable: observed) effects of it, and (more specifically) the observed good practices, initiatives with relatively significant learning effects, which are relatively easily transferable to new participants in the Universum programme, or which are relatively suitable for collaboration between schools.
