Program description

The program Voortgezet Onderwijs Cohort Leerlingen (VOCL) (Longitudinal Data Collection on Pupils in Secondary Education) investigates which factors on the pupil level influence school performance and further education, the education career and the pupils’ choice of employment. The program also addresses the influence of educational factors at the class and school level on pupils’ and schools’ performance. In doing so, a sample survey is performed amongst pupils who in a particular calendar year start in the first grade of further education. Their school careers are followed over a longer period of time, until they leave full-time daytime education. It concerns a representative sample amongst some 20,000 pupils at some 200 schools/institutions. The first group of pupils whose education career was followed in this context started in 1989. A new cohort was started in 1993 and 1999.

The research provides information for national education policy, in particular for the evaluation of educational renewal, and for education in practice. The data files also offer a wide range of possibilities for scientific analysis.