Navigator

Use Navigator collections to help people discover concrete opportunities: programmes, providers, locations, and regional support services.

Unlike the Knowledge Base collections, which focus on explaining how the system works, Navigator collections describe real-world entities within the education ecosystem.

These collections power content such as:

• Training programs and study pathways
• Educational institutions offering these programs
• Physical locations where programs are taught
• Regional education desks that provide guidance and consultation

Data within this section is sourced from various external vendors. Access to datasets that are not proprietary to Onderwijsloket requires additional permissions.

The following collections make up the Navigator family.

Retrieve programmes

GET /items/programs

The programs collection contains information about educational programs that lead to qualifications for roles in the education sector.

Programs originate from external data suppliers and are periodically synchronized into the platform. Because of this, records (may) contain metadata about the source vendor and synchronization timestamps.

Programs are connected to:

• educational_institutions offering the program
• locations where the program is taught
• program_forms describing variations of the program

Programs may also contain identifiers such as CROHO and CREBO, which correspond to official Dutch education registry systems.

Retrieve programme forms

GET /items/program_forms

The program_forms collection describes variations of a program.

These variants represent different ways the same program can be followed, such as different learning tracks or program formats.

Each form belongs to a single program and may include a link to an external page where more information about the specific variant can be found.

Retrieve educational institutions

GET /items/educational_institutions

The educational_institutions collection represents organizations that offer educational programs.

Examples include universities, universities of applied sciences, and vocational education institutions.

Institutions store basic organizational information and are connected to:

• locations where the institution operates
• programs offered by the institution

As with programs, institution data is typically synchronized from external vendors.

Retrieve locations

GET /items/locations

The locations collection contains physical locations associated with educational institutions and programs.

Locations store address information and geographic metadata used for mapping and search functionality.

Locations may be connected to:

• educational institutions
• programs offered at that location

This allows the platform to display where a program can be followed.

Retrieve regional education desks

GET /items/regional_education_desks

The regional_education_desks collection contains organizations that provide guidance to people interested in working in education.

These desks offer services such as consultations, orientation activities, and information about entering the education sector.

Each desk may include contact information, service descriptions, and links where users can schedule a consultation.

Regional education desks often operate within a specific geographic area and may provide both digital consultation services and physical meeting locations.

Retrieve service areas

GET /items/areas

The areas collection defines geographic areas used to represent service regions for regional education desks.

These records contain geographic metadata describing the boundaries and center of a region.

Areas are primarily used to determine which regional education desk is relevant for a user based on their location.

Build navigator experiences

Various examples demonstrating how to interact with these collections, including how to perform geo-based search queries, can be found in the Advanced Usage article and the example repository.