210 million for CoE's from "Nationaal Groeifonds"

A huge boost for cooperation and knowledge development in the region. The National Growth Fund invests hundreds of millions of euros for cooperation between education and business in the region. This makes it possible for us to take big steps together to ensure that enough and well-trained people are trained for the SME sector. The proposal Upscaling of public-private partnerships in vocational education in which Katapult was involved has been conditionally awarded 210 million euros.

Pieter Moerman, co-founder of Katapult: "This is great news for the 10,000 companies, and the 8,000 teachers who have started to work together intensively over the past 10 years, reaching 120,000 students annually. With all these investments, it is now time to take the next step: supporting SMEs for the transitions in, for example, energy and digitalization." 

The energy transition, digitalization, societal challenges and the aging population. These are all issues that we cannot ignore and that have a major impact on the availability of enough well-trained people. With this plan, we are building on the existing foundation. Over the past 10 years, the 450 public-private partnerships (PPPs) that have emerged have shown that the connection between vocational education and the labor market has improved demonstrably. This proposal focuses specifically on upscaling the successful partnerships so that even more impact can be created. 210 million euros have been made available for this from the National Growth Fund.

Hans de Jong, ambassador of Katapult: "The time of pilots and small-scale projects is over. We need to support SMEs on a large scale and provide them with well-trained staff. Within the 450 PPP's the route to success has already been found, we need to scale it up. For that, this award offers a great opportunity."

(news from Katapult)