Full annual figures are still not online for many school boards
According to the Good Governance codes in primary and secondary education, educational institutions should publish the full annual figures online. Many school boards still ignore their own agreements.
In secondary education, one third of the boards still do not put the annual accounts online, the employers' organization VO-raad said when asked, based on a survey among 320 members. Last September, the sector council made an explicit appeal to the members, after only half had responded to the agreed deadline in July.
Password
In a sample which the Education Magazine did among more than forty larger and smaller boards in primary education, half turned out not to have published current or complete annual reports.
The larger organizations generally do better than the smaller ones.
Based on its own count, the PO council claims that 85 percent of the largest boards put the management report online, but is also satisfied with a summary of the annual accounts.
Things are getting better in secondary vocational education, higher vocational education and university education, but there are still educational institutions there that knowingly do not put their annual accounts on their website. For example, the country's largest university of applied sciences provided the annual accounts only on request, and provided with a password. And a Rotterdam vocational school does not mention a word in its public report a notable pension supplement for an ex-driver. This is stated in the annual accounts, but it is only provided on request.
Painted away
Minister of Education Bussemaker considers the active publication of full annual accounts to be a matter for management itself. Last spring she threatened to make educational institutions compulsory if they do not keep their agreements.
It is remarkable that the Ministry of Education itself recently released the annual accounts of a school board via the Government Information (Public Access) Act, but did first censure them.
The remuneration of directors and supervisors was painted away, while it has been mandatory for years to be made public.
You will find the extensive report with examples and reactions in this web story.
