Minister is working on an extension of the National Education Program
Education minister Dennis Wiersma (VVD) is 'positive about an extension' of the National Education Programme. The minister said this during question time in the House of Representatives yesterday. The minister was not yet able to say how many more years schools will be given to spend the money.
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CDA Member of Parliament René Peters grabbed back yesterday his motion of June last year, which narrowly obtained a majority. At the time, with the motion, he asked - together with the SGP - the then education minister Slob to allow an extension of two years.
Sick staff
During the question hour in the plenary hall, he called on Wiersma to work on this motion now, especially now that schools are struggling with many sick teachers who are at home and therefore there is often no question of catching up on learning arrears. Schools are too busy organizing education instead of providing it. Peters: "Making up learning arrears while your staff is sick at home seems difficult to me. Is my impression correct that money is forced to remain on the shelf or, even worse, is forced to hire commercial desks under time pressure, without it being known what the results will be? of that?"
Catching up on learning arrears while your staff is sick at home seems difficult to me
In February 2021, Slob announced that he would make a huge bag of money available: the National Education Program with a total of 8,5 billion euros. Primary and secondary schools received 5,8 billion euros in incidental money to eliminate the learning disadvantages incurred as a result of the pandemic. Teams of teachers must determine how the money is used and which interventions are appropriate for the disadvantages at play in the school.
The Education Magazine wrote though the two years schools have to spend the money has been much criticized. 'It was not the choice of skilled education officials. They wanted to give schools four years to spend the money wisely', the magazine said. The Ministry of Finance has reduced this to two years.
Positive
Wiersma let the Chamber know that he is in favor of an extension. "I am now looking at how exactly we can do that, but also how we can link it to the coalition agreement, which also has a lot of ambitions." The minister promised to come back to it within two weeks and did not say how many years the extension will be.
Roelof Bisschop, Member of Parliament for the SGP, said that schools are sending out a clear signal: extend the term. He did inform the minister that schools should see for themselves whether they need an extension of one or two years. "One school can currently store more in a functional way than the other school."
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