Slob will pass on billions of claims for educational investments to the next cabinet
Minister Slob has passed a billion-dollar claim for primary and secondary schools on to the next cabinet. According to the McKinsey agency, the money would be needed to make Dutch education 'world class' again.
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Bureau McKinsey concluded in the report last spring A reinforced foundation for everyone that the quality of education is under pressure. 'Educational results are declining, inequality between schools is increasing because the weakest students and the weakest schools are lagging behind.'
According to McKinsey, schools only receive enough money to meet the basic requirements. 'But these requirements are low. For example, it is possible that almost all children achieve the basic level for language, while only 65 percent of the students achieve the desired reading target level. '
There is no money for hundreds of extra expectations – such as tackling radicalisation, anti-bullying policy, monitoring social safety and digitization
Never mind that schools, still according to McKinsey consultants, get enough money to fulfill all the additional demands of society and politics. These extra expectations - such as tackling radicalization, anti-bullying policy, monitoring social safety and digitization - accumulate and often change. In more than 4400 letters sent by the ministry to the House of Representatives over the past decade, more than XNUMX expectations are discussed. Often without a clear objective, additional funding, legal framework and thorough evaluation. '
World level
According to the researchers, extra money is needed structurally to bring education in primary and secondary schools back to 'world level': 700 million to 1,5 billion per year, increasing from 2021 to 2025.
That extra money would, according to McKinsey not in the lump sum must be landfilled, but must be targeted in more than twenty areas. From 'promoting a culture of improvement' in schools and 'supporting schools to reduce differences between pupils',' stimulating upward flow of pupils within secondary education ',' reducing workload ',' increasing the status and quality of the teacher through redesign of the job classification system ',' supervision of lateral entrants' and combating the dropout of starting teachers in the first years of their profession.
Decision
Minister Arie Slob pushes the claim of McKinsey through, he said this week in a letter to the House of Representatives. 'The largest investments required fall outside the current cabinet period, so it is up to subsequent cabinets to make a decision about this.'
This year, the minister is expanding the option for schools to make use of support teams. These teams are deployed from the existing programs 'Learning to improve' in secondary education and Be good stay good' in primary education. Minister Slob also wants to provide extra support for school leaders and teacher teams from next year, building on the existing School leaders innovation and development fund.
