New interim director at Vmbo Maastricht
The Supervisory Board of Limburg Secondary Education (LVO) has appointed an interim director. The interim starts immediately to solve all problems surrounding the exams at VMBO Maastricht, part of LVO.
Picture: National government
That leave both the school as Minister of Education Ingrid van Engelshoven.
The school reports that Jan Rijkers, an independent educationalist, will put things in order. He will be responsible for solving the exam problems and improving them. According to the school, LVO board chairman André Postema will hand over the entire file to Rijkers. Van Engelshoven also states in her letter that the President of the Executive Board has no substantive role in the further handling of the exam problems. Today there were votes in the House of Representatives to remove Postema, who is also a member of the Senate for the PvdA, because of all the problems.
Duped
The Ministry of Education previously urged the school group to appoint an interim director as soon as possible when the major problems with the final exams became known. It turned out that 354 students who had already taken their final exams did not receive their diploma because major errors were discovered in the school exams. Grades were incorrectly registered and many tests had not been taken at all. Minister Arie Slob stated in the first instance the final exams were invalid, but made known later that the scores will remain valid until January 1, 2019. In this way, students can still make up for their missed school exams to get a diploma.
In her letter, Van Engelshoven now states that the students who have been affected may take recovery tests for the missed subjects. They were informed yesterday and today about what they still need to do per subject. The first test will be on 11 July, and tests will also be held in August.
Complaints
Today the Chamber is debating the exam scandal in Limburg. In an appendix to the letter, Van Engelshoven added an overview of all reports to the inspectorate about the Limburg schools. Since February 2016, there were 28 reports, many of which concerned the cancellation of lessons. It also appears that a parent already complained at the beginning of February that too few tests were taken for a graduation year.
The minister announces that there will be an independent investigation into the role of the inspectorate.
