Calculate performance and science down
Pupils in group six calculate less well than three years ago. Math achievements have also fallen. This is evident from the international study Timss 2015. The decrease follows an increase between 2007 and 2011. Dutch teachers indicate that they receive relatively little further training and report a high workload.
The toppers in math and science are the Asian countries. Singapore tops the list in both subjects, with scores of 618 in math and 590 in science, respectively. The first European country on the calculation list is Northern Ireland (570) and Finland (554) for science. Timss has been around longer than Pisa, which rates performance at the age of fifteen.
Downward trend
Dutch children score 530 points (-10) for mathematics and 517 (-14) for natural sciences. That is above the standard of 500 that Timms uses, but the Netherlands is one of a small group of countries with a downward trend. Disadvantaged groups are doing relatively well, but the better students are slightly behind. Boys are still better than girls at math. In the natural sciences, boys and girls in group six now score equally, mainly due to a drop among boys.
Science
| 1995 | 2003 | 2007 | 2011 | 2015 |
| 530 | 525 | 523 | 531 | 517 |
To calculate
| 1995 | 2003 | 2007 | 2011 | 2015 |
| 549 | 540 | 535 | 540 | 530 |
Source: Timms 2015
Due to the rise of various countries and an increase in the number of participants, the Netherlands drops in the ranking but remains in the sub-top. For example, newcomer to the study Poland is surpassing us, just like Portugal with strongly improved calculation performance. It is remarkable that Dutch children very often indicate that they do not like math.
High working pressure
In addition to student performance, the circumstances in which education was provided were also examined.
Dutch teachers are very satisfied with their profession, but do indicate that they have a high workload.
Not surprising, because the classes here are larger on average and the number of teaching hours is higher. Teachers also indicate that they have relatively little time for refresher courses. For example, they provide much less training on almost all aspects of arithmetic - content, didactics, curriculum, ICT, tests - than the average in other countries.
