1.5 Million Available to Create Bridges between Intermediate Vocational Education (MBO) and Cyber Security Job Market

On 23 May Minister Bussemaker (Education, Culture & Science) announced that the project 'Partners in @ction for Cyber Talent' (P@CT) will receive a total of 1.5 million. A large part of the funding comes from the Regionaal Investeringsfonds MBO (regional investment fund intermediate vocational education). The funding will be used to cross bridges between intermediate vocational education (MBO) and the security job market. For example ROC Mondriaan will start a MBO cyber security education programme in The Hague. Watch the tv interview with Wilma Verhoeks (ROC Mondriaan) and Joris den Bruinen (HSD) at Omroep West about the need for cyber security professionals and the economic potential of this domain.

P@CT is one of the two projects initiated by ROC Mondriaan and a cooperation between the government, the city of The Hague and trade and industry in The Hague. A total of 1.5 million, with 1 million coming from cooperating partners and the City of the Hague (€ 380.000,-), and 0,5 million from the Ministery is going to be invested in the coming few years.

P@CT is going to be part of the infrastructure of The Hague Security Delta. Alongside the Cyber Security Academy and the Centre of Expertise Cyber Security (De Haagse Hogeschool), which are dedicated to higher education, P@CT will concentrate on the missing link between the intermediate vocational education and the job market. This is one of the pilars for the human capital agenda of HSD and a great result of the triple helix cooperation within the Dutch security cluster.  

P@CT & Mission   

P@CT has a threefold mission: to realise bridges between MBO and cybersecurity as well as creating connections in the lines of education vo-mbo-hbo (secondary education - intermediate vocational education - higher education). Cyber security means (future) professionals in this field constantly need to update their knowledge, this is also one of the goals as well as the innovations that will arise through: learning, teaching and working.

The organisations involved in this project are: ROC Mondriaan, Gemeente Den Haag, The Hague Security Delta, ABN AMRO, Deloitte, Fortress Group, Institute for Financial Crime, Regional Police en Tracks-inspector, Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum (LUMC), Menskracht 7, Siemens, TNO, UNO2Cloud, The Hague University of Applied Sciences - Centre of Expertise for Cybersecurity, secondary education (Corbulo College, Hofstad mavo havo, Scholen Combinatie Delfland).

The topsector dutch digital delta and the Platform voor Informatiebeveiliging (Platform for Information Security) support this initiative. The Ministry of Education, Culture & Science (Ministerie van OCW) initiated a regional investment fund for intermediate vocational education (MBO). Between 2014 and 2017 a total of 100 million euro is available for public-private cooperations within the educational sector.