International transition classes can no longer cope with the influx of refugees

‘Please do something… Dozens of newcomers aged 12-18 in North and Central Drenthe cannot go to school for the time being and that hurts…’

In an impulse, Karin Zwiers, director of the Internationale Schakelklas (ISK) in Assen, posted the above message on LinkedIn on Tuesday evening. She is forced to introduce a student freeze because the transition class can no longer cope with the influx of refugees. The school is literally growing at the seams in a year and a half: from one school building to three school buildings, and from 110 students to 380. The increase is proving impossible to keep up with. Teachers are hard to find and the quality of education is deteriorating. “So I had no choice but to make this decision with pain in my heart.”

The ISK in Assen is not the only school where newcomers can no longer go. International transition classes in Groningen, Lemmer and Emmeloord are also no longer accepting students, and the problem transcends the northern provincial borders. According to L owan, an organization that helps schools organize education for refugees, education for newcomers throughout the Netherlands is stuck.

Newcomers have nowhere to go

The fact that bridging classes no longer accept new students has major consequences. Foreign children living in the Netherlands have compulsory education, just like Dutch children. Not only do they have the right to education, they are also legally obliged to follow education. Children who have just arrived in our country, for example because they have fled, must enter three months education are arranged.

International bridging classes provide education for children between the ages of 12 and 18 who have just come to live in the Netherlands. The purpose of the ISK is to prepare students for regular education. For example, they learn about the education system, about cultural and social values, and they practice the Dutch language. In total, about 120 schools in the Netherlands offer ISK education.

Due to the student freezes at ISK schools, newcomers now have nowhere to go. “Dozens of children are at home without education and are falling behind in learning,” says Lowan advisor Harriëte Boerboom. It is unclear exactly how many children are involved. “Schools, on their own initiative, keep track of how many children they have on the waiting list, but there is no national registration. We are afraid that as a result we do not even have every child in the picture.” It is also unclear how long these children have been without education.

Large increase in underage refugees

At the ISK in Assen, the number of students started to increase sharply in October 2021, first because the asylum flow started again after corona, later because of Ukrainian children who fled to the Netherlands. “We were at our maximum capacity at the time, but were granted extra space twice by the municipality,” says Zwiers.

The capacity problem seemed to have been solved for a while with the extra space, but the flow of asylum seekers in the Netherlands continued to rise. “With the overflow of Ter Apel, our school also got stuck,” says Zwiers. For example, the school received more applications from unaccompanied minor foreign nationals (amv’ers). According to it Netherlands Youth Institute (NJi) the number of unaccompanied minors rose sharply last year. In 2021, 1305 minors came to the Netherlands. Between 1 January 2022 and 1 January 2023, 3118 unaccompanied minor foreign nationals were received.

The many emergency reception centers also caused capacity problems for the ISK. “Children receive education in the region where they are received, but because of the temporary and often sudden nature of these reception centers, it is difficult for schools to determine how many children to receive and for how long”. Lowan agrees. “In some emergency shelters, 1500 refugees have been taken care of. If 20 percent of that group are children, then an ISK must offer education to all those children. That is an impossible task,” says Boerboom.

At Caleido ISK in Lemmer and Emmeloord, the same thing happened as in Assen. In one year, the number of students doubled from 150 to 300. They can no longer accept new students until the summer period. Location director Jeroen Oosterhof has had sleepless nights. “It is a very unpleasant decision, which really gives me a stomach ache. We naturally want to be able to offer education to every child”. There are currently fifteen students on the waiting list for the school. And we expect that list to continue to grow.

Teacher shortage

The need for a student freeze can partly be explained by the shortage of staff in education. In a letter to the House of Representatives at the beginning of December, ministers Dennis Wiersma and Robbert Dijkgraaf write that a shortage of more than 2100 jobs is foreseen in secondary education in 2027. In order to teach at an ISK, a teacher must, in addition to a teaching qualification for secondary education, also need an NT2 training, where teacher. In this course you will learn the requirements for teaching Dutch to someone who speaks a foreign language. “With the current shortage, NT2 expertise is nowhere to be found,” says Boerboom.

Caleido managed to grow from 25 to 60 employees in one year. After that, there were no responses to open vacancies. “The group of teachers we can approach is small. Apart from the NT2 training, you must also have a real affinity with this profession. Other qualities are expected from ISK teachers than from a normal teacher”.

In the ISK in Lemmer, pupils who have never had any education, pupils who do not know the Latin script, pupils who do know the Latin script and pupils who can speak English are all in the same class. The level in a class also differs. “One child is very theoretical, while the other child is much more skilled in practice. The only thing that connects them is the extent to which they speak Dutch or not. Teachers must therefore be able to switch very quickly between different children and their individual needs, and must also be very linguistic,” says Oosterhof.

Emergency bell

The problems in newcomer education have been going on for a long time. In November Lowan sounded the alarm about the increased waiting lists for ISKs. The organization conducted a survey among ISK schools that showed that 60 percent of schools have a waiting list; 22 percent of schools do not have a waiting list, but can no longer accept students. “And the situation only seems to get worse,” says Boerboom.

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is aware of the problem and indicates that it is becoming increasingly difficult to guarantee good education in the Netherlands. “The stretch is out in terms of both teachers and school buildings.” In addition, the Netherlands has offered approximately 18,000 children from Ukraine and several thousand other asylum children a place in education. “We see that municipalities and school boards are making enormous efforts to limit waiting lists and to find a solution for newcomers. We understand that they are faced with complicated dilemmas when there is insufficient space in schools”.

The ministry is in talks with schools, municipalities and the Education Inspectorate to see how they can “deal appropriately with these circumstances”. The ministry does not want to prejudge the outcome of these talks.