It is possible: better educated students, better education with better teachers

One plus one equals two. It should be that simple in education. Ensure that students leave school with math and language skills and provide appropriately qualified teachers. Equals a country where there are equal opportunities, whose citizens can participate in society, and which can compete with other knowledge economies.

And yet the Netherlands has not been able to make that simple calculation for twenty years. For the umpteenth year in a row, the Education Inspectorate warns that both pupils in primary and secondary education are less able to read, write and count than desired. Also the knowledge about ‘citizenship’ – who am I and how does society work? – falls.

Last year, the Education Inspectorate wrote that only a quarter of twelve-year-olds could write a text with ‘some coherence’ and that a quarter of fifteen-year-olds leave school with low literacy. These were the percentages before corona, during the pandemic education took place remotely and via video meetings.

Without basic knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic, it is difficult to be self-reliant, to apply for a job, to follow instructions from the GP, to vote, to fill out a tax return. Even all the things that make life more fun and easier get harder when you’re poorly literate.

While, and the Inspectorate is also very clear about this, it is possible to provide education that provides students who can participate in society as fully-fledged citizens. In the report ‘The State of Education’ she points to Sweden and Ireland, and initiatives in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Almere, where there is a plan to raise education to a higher level and thus improve opportunities for students. enlarge.

The Education Inspectorate’s appeal is to focus on language and math. After twenty years of increasingly urgent warnings, her recommendations should finally be followed. The fact that the VO-raad, the association of schools in secondary education, immediately announced that an emphasis on language and mathematics was ‘one-sided and narrow’ and that attention should also be paid to ‘socialization and personal development’, does not take away from the seriousness of the situation.

With a focus on math and language, better education has not yet been arranged. It must become more attractive to work in education. Because the knowledge deficit among students is exacerbated by the increasing teacher shortage.

Also read: Deleting courses, toasting with the cheese slicer: the teacher shortage is only getting bigger

That shortage has also been a problem for years. Fifteen years ago – in 2007 – be a committee headed by Alexander Rinnooy Kan already pointed out that due to the aging population and the fact that the private sector offers higher wages than education, there would be ‘a dramatic quantitative shortage of good quality teachers’. He predicted a 5 to 6 percent deficit in secondary education if teachers’ salaries were not raised and the workload were reduced. The deficit is now 9 percent.

Schools now spend millions on external teachers. That are rented out by employment agencies for an average of 25 to 50 percent more than the normal collective labor agreement hourly wage. Then to go to the next school: this way pupils do not get continuity.

Or else, roster gaps are filled with interns and teaching assistants, watching school TV or taking breaks or four-day weeks. NRC described this week how French was not taught at a school. For a country that relies on its exports and its membership of the European Union, this is extremely worrying.

In particular, socio-economically weaker neighborhoods suffer from the teacher shortage. In affluent neighborhoods, parents who can afford it buy education. A quarter of the students make use of paid tutoring and homework assistance, parents pay hundreds of euros per month for this. A small, but growing, group of children even attend private schools. And thus see a chasm getting bigger and not smaller.

The Netherlands is sneakily moving towards a problem that is more than urgent. Minister of Education Dennis Wiersma (VVD) is now coming up with a ‘national master plan’. But in a country that already has 2.5 million low-literate people, there is no time left to write or calculate or draw any more plans. Start doing.