The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is committed to promoting internationalization in education, with the goal of training pupils and students to become internationally competent. This includes a focus on professionalization of staff and teachers. The Ministry:

• Encourages educational institutions, learners and teachers to international orientation and cooperation;
• Promotes exchange and supports organizations and institutions that operate internationally;
• Works on the international administrative framework conditions, by making multilateral agreements on matters such as professional recognition, quality assurance and accreditation. And also by creating government-level frameworks bilaterally with many countries (for example, through a Memorandum of Understanding) within which institutions can work well together;
• Participates in multilateral organizations such as the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Council of Europe and UNESCO so that international knowledge is used for its own national policy.

Each education sector requires its own approach. In primary and secondary education, it is important that students come into contact with internationalization, mostly through internationalization at home or possibly short-term mobility. More and more schools offer educational programs in which internationalization is part of the curriculum. In secondary vocational and adult education, efforts are being made to promote both internationalization at home and outgoing mobility. In higher education, outbound mobility has traditionally been an anchor, but there is also an increasing focus on mixed forms of internationalization.

Nuffic plays a central role in the internationalization policy of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Nuffic is designated as the knowledge and expertise center in the field of internationalization, has been designated as the National Agency Erasmus+, stimulates educational institutions to undertake internationalization activities and ensures knowledge sharing and cooperation around internationalization between schools and sectors.

Curriculum

In the Netherlands, attention is paid to the international dimension in the curriculum of primary and secondary education, among other things. One example is the focus on foreign languages. Examples of this are early foreign language education (vvto) and bilingual primary education (tpo) for primary education and reinforced language education (vto), bilingual education (tto) and Elos frontier education for secondary education (see Chapter 13.4.1).

There is coordination, knowledge sharing and cooperation around internationalization between schools and sectors.