Dennis Wiersma stood up, walked forward and the room with VVD members fell silent. Three weeks ago, at the party congress in Apeldoorn. “Sorry,” said the Minister of Education to the VVD members. The news of his outbursts of anger, he knew, had also had a negative ‘radiance’ on them and the party. “But I’ve learned my lesson, it won’t happen again.”
It did happen, and last week already: at a symposium in Bussum, about 25 years of Practical Education, Dennis Wiersma is said to have lost his self-control again. The management of the organization filed a complaint with the Ministry of Education, after hearing the employee who had had dealings with Wiersma. It would be ‘verbal and physical harassment’.
The news about that incident came out on Wednesday this week, on Thursday evening he said in a statement on social media that he is leaving: “With pain in my heart”. According to Wiersma, he has ended up in a situation “in which it no longer matters what my tone and my intention was”. The resulting spasm, he also wrote, “is not good for anyone in the end.”
VVD leader Mark Rutte called Wiersma’s departure “extremely regrettable”. According to him, the cabinet loses with Wiersma “someone who put his heart and soul into education.”
Last warning
Wiersma had received loud and long applause at the VVD congress. The woman who stood up after him and said that he was talking a lot “about himself” was also applauded, but by no means by everyone and not loudly. By far the most VVD members in the room, there were about a thousand, seemed to wholeheartedly give their fellow party member, who so openly acknowledged his mistakes, another chance.
It seemed that this also applied to the VVD top: Prime Minister Mark Rutte, party chairman Sophie Hermans and the party board. They had given him a final warning at the end of May. They obviously didn’t want to lose him.
Dennis Wiersma (37) was seen in his match for a long time as a talent that should be cherished. He spoke well, worked hard, and the story about his background suited the people’s party that the VVD wants to be: open to everyone who wants to do their best to get on in life.
From the moment he took up his position as minister, he sharply analyzed what is wrong with education
The world of education – teachers, directors, advisers and parents – was also charmed by him. From the moment he took office as Minister for Education (Primary and Secondary) in January 2022, he has sharply analyzed what is wrong in education. There are too few teachers, so they should be paid better. School boards have too much power that allows them to spend their money (incorrectly). And most importantly, children’s reading and math performance is steadily declining. For children from families who have something to spend, parents purchase tutoring and training. Many families cannot do that.
This inspiring man would improve that for everyone. Wiersma had also completed secondary school, havo, then a hbo propaedeutic year and university. An example for people who believe in meritocracy and who believe that education is still an emancipator.
Also read this NRC-commentary: Dennis Wiersma’s resignation is justified, but also a defeat for politicians
assertiveness
But his urge to assert himself seemed to get in his way more and more in recent years. Almost every day he wanted to appear on social media with a selfie, or on television or in a newspaper. A group of young employees had to organize that for him. He interfered in detail with this personal pr. Every time he received criticism, or something he experienced as opposition, he exploded. This emerged from eighteen interviews that NRC had with people who worked with him.
Wiersma comes from Franeker, his father has a snack bar there. Politics was never discussed at home, Dennis Wiersma still thought as a child that VVD stood for ‘many days off’, his father had said so. His parents separated when he was twelve, Dennis Wiersma then lived with his mother. She had been a nurse, but she had been incapacitated for work since the 1980s.
From their home, Wiersma said NRC just before he became education minister, you could see the ‘t War district, with large houses: “The rich people lived there.”
Dennis Wiersma became chairman of FNV Jong after his studies. The fact that he had already chosen the VVD at the age of twenty was mainly due to what his mother had experienced, he said in NRC: according to him, no one from the municipality or the UWV had done their best to help her find work again.
The ‘new story’
In 2017, Wiersma became a Member of Parliament and the others in the group saw that he soon belonged to the club in the VVD that set out the lines, and devised the plans with which the VVD wanted to tell a ‘new story’: the party no longer wanted to associated with wealthy people and large corporations, but also emphatically championing middle-income earners and small businesses. He spent a lot of time with Sophie Hermans, who became (first acting) party chairman after the 2021 elections, and Member of Parliament Bente Becker, Hermans’ right-hand man in the group.
Becoming State Secretary for Social Affairs in the outgoing Rutte III cabinet was the perfect opportunity for him to show what he could do. It came as no surprise to anyone in the party that he subsequently became Minister for Education.
But in the VVD faction and in the Department of Social Affairs it is. Too many close associates had already witnessed his rage. He also displayed this behavior at OCW, internally and externally.
After the first post about it The Telegraph, in April, he said that this had only been an issue at the beginning of his ministry. But it soon turned out that wasn’t true. The VVD top continued to support him. In May, a week and a half before the VVD congress in Apeldoorn, he received his “final warning” from Sophie Hermans.
Since then, Wiersma had become vulnerable: one report about his behavior would almost certainly mean the end of his ministry. In his statement, Wiersma wrote on Thursday, as before, that he had “sometimes been too sharp”. And too bright. But that in recent weeks “examples and qualifications” had also been used in the media that he did not recognize. He had not wanted to go into that, he wrote, so as not to end up in a yes-no discussion “that does not do justice to the feelings of people who have been bothered by the behavior that has occurred.”
The VVD will now have to look for a new Minister for Education.
Read also: The tantrums of Minister Wiersma are not an incident but a pattern