1. Vocational education in the Netherlands, Elly de Bruijn, Stephen Billett and Jeroen Onstenk.- Section A - Policies and organizations.- 2. Vocational and professional education and lifelong learning, Jeroen Onstenk and Ruud Duvekot.- 3. Transforming vocational education: encouraging innovation via public private partnerships, Marc van der Meer, Jan Peter Toren and Tammy Lie.- 4. Great expectations: VET's meaning for Dutch local industry, Anneke Westerhuis and Marc van der Meer.- 5. Improvement of educational quality in VET: Who is next? Louise van de Venne, Marlies Honingh and Marieke van Genugten.- 6. Professional development of teachers in vocational education, Marcel van der Klink and Jan Streumer.- Section B - Educational programmes: teaching and learning.- 7. A dialogue worth having: vocational competence, career identity and a learning environment for 21st century success at work, Frans Meijers, Marinka Kuijpers, Reinekke Lengelle and Annemie Winters.- 8. The role and nature of knowledge in vocational programmes, Elly de Bruijn and Arthur Bakker.- 9. Designing competence-based vocational curricula at the school-work boundary, Renate Wesselink and Ilya Zitter.- 10. Pedagogic Strategies for Improving Students' Engagement and Development, Truus Harms, Aimée Hoeve, and Peter den Boer.- 11. Work-based learning (WBL) in Dutch Vocational Education: connecting learning places, learning content and learning processes, Jeroen Onstenk.- 12. Assessment in Dutch vocational education: Overview and tensions of the past 15 years, Liesbeth Baartman and Judith Gulikers.- 13. The Dutch vocational education system: Institutional focus and transformations, Stephen Billett.