The House must now make agreements about basic care and appropriate education
De AOb hopes that the Education Council report on appropriate education published today will prompt politicians to take immediate action. Establishing basic care in the law whereby it is agreed at a national level which conditions each school location must meet is an important start.
'We have now been working on this system change for four years and it is really high time that the flaws were cut out of the system. The rules must be tightened up to prevent unequal opportunities for children AObchairman Liesbeth Verheggen.
Regional differences
The Education Council notices major problems with the system: due to significant regional differences, it is difficult to say what the national state of affairs is with appropriate education. There is also a serious risk that the differences in the care offer are large and that they will grow rapidly.
'It is therefore logical that support among teaching staff for suitable education is limited: the quality of our education is under pressure and the workload is increasing,' says Verheggen. 'Classes are fuller due to increasing staff shortages and more diverse due to appropriate education, while the specialists who used to walk around at school have disappeared to a partnership. You would say: it does not exist. But unfortunately.'
Regulate basic care in the law
De AOb has lobbied for basic care since the idea of appropriate education was born. 'Most care questions we are confronted with in education are fairly general. It is therefore only logical that you lay down by law that every school must have the knowledge to deal with dyslexia, or with milder variants in the autism spectrum,' says Verheggen. 'Partnerships can then concentrate on the distribution of pupils with more complex care issues. Appropriate education is then immediately a lot clearer.'
Only: when the system change was finalized in 2012, the House felt that the state had no role in it. 'With all its consequences. The progress reports from the Ministry and this advice from the Education Council should really motivate politicians in The Hague to take action. We are talking about a thorn in the side of the teaching staff. But more importantly, this is about equal opportunities for children. I understand that elections are coming up, but in matters like this I still hope for parliamentary consensus and you shouldn't sit around waiting for a year.'
The Education Council's analysis also shows that the situation that has arisen is bad for every child.
'Discussions about appropriate education usually concern pupils with special needs, but the starting point is that the system offers equal opportunities for everyone. Because school boards are stuck on the question of which student receives extra care at which school, there is now so much hassle that the ongoing discussion completely ignores the needs of students without a need for care. Because of the larger groups and the arrival of complex classmates, teachers often have less time for them.'
Verheggen emphasizes that basic care is a first step. 'Clear agreements create more clarity for students, parents and staff. I don't think we need to debate this endlessly anymore. But national agreements about how we deal with appropriate education alone are not enough. The much too high workload at almost all schools stands in the way of good education. A mega investment is needed to curb the workload and make education more attractive as a labor market. It is not for nothing that we stated last week that at least one and a half billion euros must be added each year.
