The teacher regularly said, last year: “Boys, you have already had this material in the fourth!” And then Carmen (18) thought: no, then I was in bed. She just wants to say, with a broad grin: “We’ve been through a lot. In the third grade the online lessons started, in bed. And in the fourth they continued.” Carmen is in sixth grade, her final exams for the nature and health profile start on Thursday.
Carmen and her friends at H. Roland Holst College in Hilversum cannot make use of leniency schemes, such as those that have applied to the final exams in the past three years. “That was a shame, in December, when we heard that. We must fully comply with the exam requirements. In the past four months, we just went all out together.”
In the first corona year (2020), the leniency consisted of no final exams being taken at all, in the following two years, final exam candidates could ‘cross out’ one subject, they were given an extra resit and they were allowed to spread their exam over two periods.
Minister Dennis Wiersma (Primary and Secondary Education, VVD) will not relax the requirements for final exam candidates again, he announced in December. It is, he argues, in the interest of the student that the exam requirements return to the level before corona. “This ensures that they are as well prepared as possible for society, the labor market and are successful in their further education.”
Also read this article: Parents and students want the requirements for the final exam to be relaxed for another year – the minister and the Inspectorate do not
Lesson cancellation
In recent years, the leniency schemes have led to historically high success rates: where normally 92 percent pass VMBO (theoretical and mixed learning path), 87 percent HAVO and 91 percent VWO, in 2020 98.7 percent of students passed. In 2021 this was still about 95 percent and in 2022 94 percent.
Both student organization LAKS and Parents and Education again asked for leniency in recent months, because they note “a lot of stress” among students about the final exam. Stress that has increased, said LAKS chairman Janouke van Meerveld, due to the backlogs that this generation of final exam candidates incurred during the corona lockdowns and with which they are still struggling. “Vmbo students who are now taking exams,” says Van Meerveld, “have had to deal with lockdowns and cancellations from the first grade. Havo and vwo in the second, third and fourth grade. It is expected that they have now made up for that backlog, that is not the case. Also because of the many class cancellations.”
International research published in January shows that the backlogs have indeed not yet been made up. Worldwide, students are on average one third of a grade behind.
“The disappointment was great when it turned out in December that leniency would disappear,” says coach Kai Spall at Roland Holst College, who supervises these exam candidates, among others. “But we soon made the switch: come on, let’s go for it. And they’re good for it, you know. No worse than before corona.”
‘Healthy tension’
Anne (17), a student in Hilversum, also puts the task she and her classmates face into perspective: “We had to do so much extra last year to catch up, that we have gained self-confidence. We got through this too.” Anne wants to study psychology in Leiden. If she is not selected – there is a numerus fixus of five hundred students – she will do voluntary work for a year in a nursing home or in Africa. She recently did exam training in Leiden. She was there for a Saturday and a Sunday, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Do they, like many peers, suffer from stress and pressure to perform? No, say Freek and Jouke (18). Well of “healthy tension in the test periods”. “I never had homework assistance,” says Jouke. How does he keep himself focused? “We encourage each other within the group of friends. Compare figures. There is some competition between them.”
Like everyone else, Freek had to concentrate on the subject matter and was so bothered by the urge to watch TikTok videos that he removed the app from his phone. Now he only uses Snapchat to communicate with friends.
Olivier (17) also suffers little from stress, he says. He wants to study econometrics and will have to work hard for every exam. But sleepless nights or something? “Not at all.” He never had homework help. “I only spoke a little French with the neighbor, for French.”
To resuscitate social contact between students after corona, Kai Spall and his colleagues went to Walibi amusement park with seventy students and spent the night in Maastricht. “That was really nice for them.”
Hidde (18) still regrets when he thinks back on what he missed in the 2020-2021 school year: “We have been robbed of a year. We missed a lot, so much fun. It was wonderful to go to school without interruption our last year, this year. We really missed the teachers. And each other.” But really suffered? No, okay, he hasn’t.
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Call before the end of class
His coach Kai Spall sees more school stress among students than before. “There is a lot of pressure on them, from home and from education. They must immediately choose the right study, otherwise they will have to switch and lose their rights. Fortunately for this year, the scholarship will start again in September. That relieves some of the pressure.”
Some parents apply pressure, says Spall. Pupils who remain in VWO 5 can still go to HAVO to immediately take their final exam there. “But for some parents, havo is unmentionable.”
At the same time, parents can find out every grade of their child via the Somtoday app. “In the past, as a student you could hide a bad grade. Not now. They see everything. Sometimes a parent calls the student at the end of the lesson, at school, because they have seen a bad grade appear in Somtoday.” There is, says coach Sjoerd Nanninga, little room to fail. “But without friction, no shine.”
Some teachers at Roland Holst College try to put it all in perspective. “I often say: a six can feel like a ten. We give students as many opportunities as possible here,” says Spall. The school also has a VMBO department that many HAVO-VWO students have already disposed of.
On Thursday, as always at this school, the exams will be opened with a poem by Adriaan Roland Holst.
Today, Jouke and Freek have only one concern: recovering from the exam stunt and the subsequent party. They had already been to Albufeira, they add. After the exam they go to Split.