Alfa-college is a denominational Regional Education Centre (ROC) for vocational training and adult education. The ROC provides a coherent range of courses enabling young people and adults to gain qualifications for further education and the labour market.
Alfa-college has over 12.500 students in the age range of 16 – 60 and 1100 members of staff at various divisions in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands with Groningen as its centre. Alfa-college caters for a wide range of intermediate vocational training and tailor-made adult education from which (young) people can choose, fitting in with their ambition and talent with which they can obtain a strong position on the labour market due to the fact that apart from social behaviour attention is paid to functioning in an organization.
Furthermore Alfa-college provides tailor-made courses for business and industry. The Ministry of Education in the Netherlands has created a policy framework in which the ROCs have to be transformed into social enterprises. This has resulted in the obligation to see to an adequate tie-up between education and the labour market. Alfa-college offers educational programs with level EQF 1 – 4. The ROC’s program focuses on the development of the European dimension in VET. Within the framework of the strategy policy for the Northern Netherlands and because of Alfa-college’s presence in this area, the college has developed the following objectives: to improve the skills and competencies of people, especially of young people, in initial vocational training at all levels, with a view to facilitating their integration and reintegration in the labour market. To improve the quality of, and access to, vocational education and training systems and qualifications, and to guidance systems in order to enhance the employability of young people and adults in the labour market.
Keystones of Alfa-college are: continue to be socially meaningful, work towards a strong region, create more value for a better world.