News item | 24-03-2025 | 16:45
The number of premature school leavers (VSV) at MBO has fallen in the 2023-2024 academic year compared to the year before, with almost 2000 fewer dropouts. The task still remains high, the ambition is fewer than 18,000 VSV members in 2026. The minister therefore wants to continue with the VSV approach and ensure that young people for whom a basic qualification is not feasible ends up on the labor market. Minister Bruins (Education, Culture and Science) writes this today in his letter to the House of Representatives.
Bruins: “Good to see that the approach to prevent early school leavers is working in MBO. I think we are obliged to guide them to work or a new training for every young person who needs it. That task remains high. Together with schools in the VO and MBO, municipalities, and the business world is really not a diploma for the diploma. Labor market.
Tide
In MBO the tide seems to be reversing: the number of new VSV people has fallen from 24,286 VSV’ers in academic year 2022-2023 to 22,308 in 2023-2024. The action plan that started in October 2023 to prevent failure is bearing fruit. This gives students better support. Young people are helped by looking at what someone really needs. Sometimes someone with the right guidance can choose a new education, sometimes the request for help is more in the personal life of a young person. An important part of the approach is the cooperation agreements that make schools, transfer points and municipalities in offering the required guidance. This collaboration is essential for young people. Failure and youth unemployment are not problems that can only be solved by one of these parties.
Reducing school leaving no end station
Thanks in part to this collaboration, young people can be kept better inboard and the right help can be called in faster if it cannot be offered from the educational institution. The focus of the approach focuses on the main causes of failure: personal problems, a mismatch between the training and the expectations of the student, unpleasant outages to work and insufficient guidance in the switch from school to work. Measures that are implemented in schools must be accessible for all young people at school who need it, regardless of the place of residence. Every year 90 million will be available for this from January 1, 2026, instead of the current 50 million. The reduction of VSV still sees the minister as an important goal, but not as a final station. Bruins: “My goal is that young people end up on the labor market. Also young people for whom getting a basic qualification is not obvious. With the bill from school to sustainable, we have taken this way and we will continue with that.”
To 18,000 in 2026
Early school leavers are young people who failure from school without a basic qualification. A basic qualification is a school diploma from MBO level -2, -3 or -4, HAVO or VWO. Young people with a start -up qualification usually find work easier and have more existence. It gives young people the best start for a promising future. That is why it is important to reduce the number of early school leavers to less than 18,000 in 2026. In 2022 it had risen to 30,000 young people from secondary education and MBO together, the highest number in ten years. The main causes of this included (the aftermath of) Corona and the tight labor market, so that many young people went to work without a diploma. Despite the fall in VSV in MBO, the total task with 29,163 dropouts in 2023-2024 from secondary education and MBO together is still great. An increase in VSV people can be seen in secondary education. This can also be explained by an increase in the number of newcomers who fall prematurely in secondary education and the flow to further education. Before the summer, State Secretary Mariëlle Paul comes with an approach to improvement for newcomers education.
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