Cutbacks in educational disadvantage policy will continue
The subject of educational disadvantage policy has been declared controversial by the House of Representatives: it will only be discussed again in a new cabinet. This means that the cutbacks on educational disadvantages by outgoing State Secretary Dekker of Education will continue until a new cabinet decides otherwise.
In April, the House of Representatives proposed a new composition a list with a total of 250 controversial topics. These are subjects that are often politically sensitive.
Primary schools in the Netherlands receive extra money through the weight scheme to make up for disadvantages among pupils. This regulation has been adjusted since 2006: the ethnicity criterion disappeared in the assessment of educational disadvantage. Only the educational level of the parents is taken into account when determining whether schools receive extra money. As a result, fewer students were eligible for the weight regulation.
Between 2010 and 2015, the number of (disadvantaged) students decreased from 196 thousand to 136 thousand. It is expected that the decline will continue and that less and less money will be allocated to backlogs.
In Education Magazine 17 of 31 October 2015 stated that this adjustment has cost schools hundreds of millions of euros. Especially because the educational level of parents is increasing.
Fire letter
Last February, municipalities, the primary school council representing primary school boards and other interest groups sent an urgent letter to State Secretary Dekker to reverse the cut of 65 million euros in educational arrears in the spring memo. Rik Grashoff (Groenlinks) asked parliamentary questions about this letter. Dekker replied that there is no cutback. "There is an estimate adjustment," said the minister. This is mainly due to the general decline in pupils and the higher educational level of parents. April last year Dekker also informed the House that he will not undo the cutbacks. Only the VVD supported Dekker at the time. D66, Groenlinks and the CDA wanted to stop the cutbacks.
More criteria
In the meantime, the Ministry of Education had asked Statistics Netherlands to consider a new weighting scheme. At the beginning of February, Statistics Netherlands came up with a concrete proposal. According to Statistics Netherlands, many more criteria should be taken into account when determining educational disadvantage, such as the neighborhood where a child lives, whether his parents are in debt restructuring and the country of origin. Statistics Netherlands emphasized that the level of education alone is not enough.
Last month published the Ministry of Education interdepartmental policy research research: Educational disadvantage, a helping hand? It also states that the indicators for educational disadvantage do not optimally match the greatest risk of educational disadvantage. This means that the money does not always end up where the risk of backlog is greatest.
Damage
Rinda den Besten, chairman of the PO council, resigns the website of the council that declaring it controversial means that the old policy can now cause even more damage, because the budget is decreasing again this year. 'It seems that the ministry has factored in the leakage of this money in its budget. I do not understand how you can do that, after you have acknowledged that the current calculation is wrong, after we have heard again from the Education Inspectorate that the inequality of opportunities in the Netherlands is increasing and knowing that investing in preventing arrears pays off. ”
