Begin at the end, and keep returning
Jelle Blauw (7244061) · Ruud Kiewied (4869737) · Sade van Ophem (7141432) · Job Volkers (0168874) · Aurelia de Vries (2561948)
01 · The challenge
Secondary vocational education (mbo) in the Netherlands prepares more than 500,000 students each year for their future roles in society (MBO Raad, n.d.). To achieve this, mbo has a threefold qualification mandate: preparing students for a profession, preparing them for further education, and preparing them for active citizenship. Occupational qualification requirements are developed through consultation between educational institutions, labour market representatives, and sector organizations. At the same time, individual schools shape their own educational vision and determine how they prepare their students for participation in society. As a result, decisions about what students should learn are influenced by a range of stakeholders, each bringing different expectations, interests, and values. This raises an important question:
One important response to this challenge can be found in career guidance and development (LOB), which aims to help students navigate educational and professional pathways. In Dutch vocational education, LOB is commonly structured around the five career competences developed by Marinka Kuijpers (2003): reflection on qualities, reflection on motives, work exploration, career management, and networking. These competences support students in developing self-knowledge, exploring opportunities, and directing their own development through cycles of experience, reflection, and decision-making. While LOB helps students make informed decisions about their education and career, preparing students for an uncertain future requires more than career decision-making alone. Students must also learn to question assumptions, work with ambiguity, and adapt to change. This challenge formed the starting point for a design-oriented literature review, combining insights from educational theory and curriculum design to generate recommendations for vocational education.
02 · Our lens
Our complex society calls for educating students who do not rely on singular problem definitions or predetermined futures. Because contemporary society is characterized by plurality, the future remains open. This calls for ‘living the questions’: making space for experimentation, imagination, and relationality in the here-and-now (Wessels, 2023). To navigate this complexity, our advice is informed by four complementary theoretical perspectives.
Barnett (2004) argues that in an uncertain future, not only are outcomes difficult to predict, but the frameworks through which we understand the world are changing and contested. Education therefore needs to develop dispositions that enable students to act when familiar knowledge and assumptions are challenged. These include criticality, openness, resilience, and courage. In vocational education, this means preparing students for a profession and to keep learning and making decisions as their profession and society change.
Wessels (2023) critiques traditional educational logic for treating the student solely through a preparative ‘readiness dichotomy’ or a ‘space dichotomy’ separating the school from the external world. Rather than positioning the student as an outsider being prepared for future participation, Wessels introduces the concept of ‘the entangled student’. Through their ongoing, evolving biographies, students are always already entangled with today’s societal challenges. Far from being an isolated island, the school functions as a dynamic, democratic hub infiltrated by complex social issues (Wessels, 2023). Consequently, the student is not a passive observer, but an active participant who continuously co-shapes and is co-shaped by our shared reality.
Biesta (2013) describes education as a beautiful risk: teachers work with people, not objects, making education inherently unpredictable. Attempts to make education entirely controllable overlook this complexity. Education should therefore support students’ freedom, autonomy, and independence rather than assume a predictable relationship between educational input and output. Beyond qualification and knowledge acquisition, education involves socialization through encounters with others and subjectification through students’ relationships with themselves and the world. Together, these enable students to shape their own futures.
Talbot (2025) connects the concept of Powerful Knowledge, developed by Young and Muller (2013), with the Capabilities Approach. While Powerful Knowledge emphasizes how access to specialized knowledge enables new ways of thinking and acting, Talbot argues that it offers limited justification for its value from an educational justice perspective. The Capabilities Approach provides this normative framework by focusing on people’s real opportunities to pursue lives they have reason to value. It distinguishes between functionings, which are actual achievements, capabilities, which represent genuine opportunities to do or become something, and agency, the ability to act on these opportunities. Together, these perspectives position education beyond human capital development, emphasizing how specialized knowledge can expand students’ freedom, opportunities, and capacity for human flourishing.
03 · Stakeholders
Conversations with L&D Talents helped refine and validate our recommendations, particularly the shift from labour market relevance towards human development, agency, and democratic citizenship. The pitch also highlighted that our solution may be evaluated differently across contexts. While educational stakeholders emphasize students’ personal development and agency, business stakeholders focus more on organizational needs. This reinforces the need for recommendations that are both educationally grounded and context sensitive.
04 · Our advice
In a complex and uncertain world, curriculum design should begin with the question of what kind of graduate education aims to develop. Understanding by Design (UbD) follows this principle: define desired outcomes, determine evidence of learning, and then design learning experiences (McTighe & Wiggins, 2012). Agile Backward Design extends this approach by aligning learner needs, industry expectations, societal developments, and educational goals (Dazeley et al., 2024).
Our advice is therefore not a fixed prescription, but a way of working. Rather than starting with what students should master, we encourage schools to begin by defining who their graduates should become and continuously return to that vision when making curriculum decisions. The following three steps outline an approach to curriculum design centered on students’ development, autonomy and future participation in society. They describe how to move from a shared vision of the desired graduate to meaningful assessment and learning experiences.
Step 1
Develop a shared vision with stakeholders of the knowledge, dispositions and capabilities students need to expand their freedom and opportunities. To illustrate this principle, we developed Daan, a graduate profile that serves as a starting point for curriculum design.
Step 1 · Illustration
Daan is our answer to the first question of backward design: who do we hope our graduates will become? His profile is grounded in Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s holistic pedagogical triad of head, heart, and hands (Volwassenenleren, n.d.). This perspective integrates cognitive development, socio-emotional and ethical engagement, and practical agency. Applied to Daan, the triad becomes three questions: what does he understand, what does he value, and what can he do?
Click his head, heart or hands.
"Education is not about filling a bucket but about lighting a fire."
Attributed to W. B. Yeats, in Biesta (2013, p. 1)
Explore all three to light the fire.
Step 2
Daan illustrates how a desired graduate can be articulated in terms of knowledge, values, and agency. The next step is to determine how these qualities can be evidenced in educational practice. For professional skills, rubrics and assessment criteria can be useful. Autonomy, including students’ ability to think critically, show curiosity and make independent choices, is better explored through reflection, dialogue and students’ decisions.
Step 3
Only then should learning activities be designed. Existing LOB practices, such as Kuijpers’ five career competences (2003), can support students in reflecting on who they are, exploring possibilities and making choices while engaging with real societal challenges.
Keep returning to Step 105 · Conclusion
Who decides what is worth mastering? This advisory report argues that this responsibility should not rest with a single stakeholder but should emerge from continuous dialogue between educational institutions, professional fields, societal stakeholders, and students themselves. Each contributes different perspectives on valuable knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Consequently, determining what is worth mastering requires ongoing negotiation, rather than a fixed set of educational priorities.
Ultimately, what is worth mastering cannot be determined once and for all. Educational institutions have a responsibility to facilitate this ongoing dialogue while balancing professional requirements, societal expectations, and students’ developing agency. The purpose of vocational education is therefore not merely to prepare students for a future defined by others, but to provide them with the knowledge, dispositions, and capabilities to participate responsibly in shaping their own futures and the society of which they are already part.
Barnett, R. (2004). Learning for an unknown future. Higher Education Research & Development, 23(3), 247–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/0729436042000235382
Biesta, G. J. J. (2013). The beautiful risk of education. Paradigm Publishers. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315635866
Biesta, G. J. J. (2020). Risking ourselves in education: Qualification, socialization, and subjectification revisited. Educational Theory, 70(1), 89–104. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12411
Dazeley, R., Goriss-Hunter, A., Meredith, G., Firmin, S., Burke, J., Panther, B., & Sellings, P. (2024). Agile backward design: A framework for planning higher education curriculum. The Australian Educational Researcher, 52, 1489–1508. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-024-00772-7
Kuijpers, M. (2003). Loopbaanontwikkeling: Onderzoek naar ‘competenties’. Twente University Press.
MBO Raad. (n.d.). Handreiking LOB mbo: Van oriëntatie naar ontwikkeling. Retrieved September 24, 2026, from https://www.mboraad.nl/publicaties/handreiking-lob-mbo-van-orientatie-naar-ontwikkeling
McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2012). Understanding by Design framework. ASCD. https://files.ascd.org/staticfiles/ascd/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf
Talbot, D. (2025). From powerful knowledge to capabilities: Social realism, social justice, and the Capabilities Approach. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 59(2), 219–239. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopedu/qhae050
Volwassenenleren. (n.d.). Pestalozzi: Hoofd, hart en handen. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://volwassenenleren.nl/pestalozzi-hoofd-hart-en-handen/
Wessels, K. R. (2023). Pedagogy of entanglement: A response to the complex societal challenges that permeate our lives. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15787-5
Young, M., & Muller, J. (2013). On the powers of powerful knowledge. Review of Education, 1(3), 229–250. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3017