News item | 01-09-2025 | 08:30
What are the basic values of the democratic constitutional state? How does society work? And how do you learn to deal with AI and online information? It is important that students learn this in citizenship and digital literacy. To give teachers more direction and guidance in the interpretation of that education in citizenship and digital literacy, so -called ‘core objectives’ were made for the first time. In this way teachers know better what students really should know and can. The core objectives are delivered today, together with the goals for Dutch Sign Language. The new goals are part of the ongoing renewal of the outdated curriculum. With more focus, education is improved and the overload of the curriculum is prevented.
State Secretary Mariëlle Paul (Fundend Education and Emancipation): “It is desperately needed to make clearer what students should know and can do in the best in 2025. The world is changing rapidly. That is why you learn how to participate in society, as a responsible and critical citizen. And to be able to save you, but it is also important that you are important that Get acquainted with new technology such as AI.
More Clarity
For some time, schools in primary and secondary education have been instructed to actively promote citizenship and social cohesion. And digital literacy is also not new for schools. For example, students at Dutch already practice with, for example, assessing different types of online information. What is new is that both subjects are now explicitly part of the national curriculum. The core objectives give teachers much more clarity and direction about what children really should learn. How That exactly happens to the teacher and the school.
Each goal contains a number of elaborations. For example, students must learn how to act responsibly with an AI system. And citizenship contains, among other things, being able to name equivalent treatment, stereotyping, discrimination and exclusion. In the update of Dutch Sign Language, in addition to special education, core objectives have now been set for secondary special education.
Already get started
The new attainment targets have been drawn up and tested by the education itself: teachers, school leaders, students, experts and important educational parties. The next step is that they are laid down in the law. The core objectives are expected to enter into force on 1 August 2027. But schools have to be here not wait for. The emphatic call is to get started with it now, because the renewal of the curriculum is urgent. Schools and teachers can already experience the new attainment targets and translate them as well as possible into the situation in their own classroom. From this fall, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science offers support, in collaboration with, among others, SLO, sector councils, trade unions, teacher training courses, knowledge institutions and developers of learning resources and tests.
New step with improvement education
The revision of the outdated curriculum – for the first time since 2006 – is an important step in improving the quality of education. Earlier, the tightened nuclear objectives of Dutch, maths and mathematics were already delivered. In the education program, even more focus on reading, writing and calculating. Not only with Dutch and arithmetic and mathematics, but with all learning areas. These goals are expected to take effect on 1 August 2026, although the emphatic advice to get started with it now also applies. Later this year the new attainment targets for movement and sports, people and society, people and nature, art and culture, modern foreign languages and Frisian language and culture. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is working with SLO on a system of periodic maintenance of the curriculum.
More is happening to improve the quality of education. Schools can rely on the Basic Skills Master Plan. In this way they can make extra work on reading, writing and calculating. Around 2.3 million students in the PO and VO (95% of all students) have now been reached. And good education is only possible with enough good people in front of the class: that is why we are also working hard on tackling the teacher shortage.