General

Slob: if necessary, remove money from a partnership

Education minister Arie Slob wants to make it possible, from next year, to withdraw money from partnerships for appropriate education that keep too many reserves on the shelf. “It only has to end once,” he said this afternoon during the debate on the education budget.

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Picture: Livestream Tweede Kamer

The majority of the 152 organizations have much more money on the shelf than necessary to absorb risks, it appeared from a list can the Education Magazine published last week. This amounts to more than 180 million euros. Minister Slob has recently introduced upper limits for all educational institutions, but he cannot simply enforce them. Just before the debate, the minister sent an situation to the Chamber. A lively evaluation debate about appropriate education awaits next month, but Slob did not want to wait for that.

“I ask all partnerships to immediately make plans to spend money on care for children in a targeted manner. And I'm already telling them: if those plans don't materialize or are insufficient, then from next year that money - I'll see how I can do that in a good way - will be removed so that it can be used where the needs are greatest are,” said Slob. He pointed out that partnerships have been warned repeatedly in recent years. “We see that there are still a lot of reserves. We understand that you have some reserve. But so many and that they are sometimes well above the signaling values, we don't understand that.”

We now know that many partnerships exceed the signaling values

On Tuesday, during the first part of the debate, many parties in the House of Representatives already indicated that they wanted to deal with excessive reserves in partnerships as soon as possible. “We now know that many partnerships exceed these signaling values,” said GroenLinks MP Lisa Westerveld, who appealed to the government coalition. “I am only clear: D66 immediately wants a strict upper limit to the savings reserves of the partnerships, preferably zero,” said MP Paul van Meenen. "The CDA can no longer accept this, because it is really not good," said Michel Rog, who conducts his last budget debate and leaves the House of Representatives after the elections. “We understand the presence of target reserves and destination reserves. But somewhere the knife falls. ”

Airtime

The debate about the latest education budget of the current cabinet resulted in a range of political reflections: from critical reflections on the last term of office and ten years of “neo-liberal” Rutte cabinets to bold visions of the future with free broadcasting time for their own election program.

D66 already had one of the ideas on a national morning paper on Tuesday morning awarded: can we offer secondary schools space and support in corona time by spreading the final exams over two months and making the school exams more important? During the debate, Van Meenen did not have to waste a lot of words on it.

That must be arranged quickly, VVD MP Rudmer Heerema reminded. Schools and pupils must know in good time where they stand. Last spring, students were in secondary special education for a while uncertainty because of political wrangling about their exams. To prevent such an undesirable situation in secondary education, Van Meenen waved a possible motion, but he first wanted to await the response of Minister Arie Slob.

He responded this afternoon that work is being done behind the scenes on various exam scenarios. This will be clarified in two or three weeks, according to the minister.

Rush

There were more subjects that the House of Representatives wanted to tackle quickly, such as the teachers' grant. The cut in the teachers' grant budget, as a result of which thousands of teachers were denied, fell to the Lower House last summer raw on the roof. Even though Minister Slob early this year announced that the money will be shifted to side entrants and training places for assistants, another wish of the House in the fight against the teacher shortage. According to the on Prinsjesdag presented education budget, this intervention appears to be structural. Extra tricky: next year's budget is on the table, while the problem is already occurring this year.

The CDA stated that it wanted to force a breakthrough with an amendment if necessary. Just like the SP, PvdA and GroenLinks, who wanted to bring money forward within the budget with a cash slide. "To be honest, I'm not very happy with the cover, because it's a bit of a cigar from its own box," admitted SP Member of Parliament Peter Kwint. "But I think it's more important that there is now a solution."

Just to manage expectations: it does not mean that it will eventually be honored

Slob advised against that route. His officials have passed on the wish of the House of Representatives to grant rejected teacher grant applications to fellow Minister Hoekstra of Finance with a view to the upcoming autumn memorandum at the beginning of December. In this, the cabinet is tinkering with the budget for the current calendar year for the very last time. "Just to manage expectations: it does not say that it will eventually be honored." In addition, there are still some traps. So it will be very short day to pay out the money this year. Moreover, the same cutbacks will not be off the table for the following years.

Bright spots

Slob used the latest budget debate to take stock of the fight against the teacher shortage and to showcase the 'bright spots' he sees, such as an increase in side enrollments and a growth in the PABO intake. "I'll only formulate it with a diminutive, because the issue is still very big."

Why are the daily shortages still not tracked by the ministry, Kwint wanted to know? He reminded the minister once again of his adopted motion on a national registration. He responded that he first focuses on the situation in the big cities, where the problems are greatest. Later this month, this should provide a picture, based on information requested from schools. This does not happen on a daily basis, but over a somewhat shorter period of time, according to Slob, who predicted a national inventory as the next step.

I would like to say one thing to all of you: please do not interfere with the quality agreements

The next cabinet will probably start working on a new - or old - form of student finance in higher education. The loan system, introduced with much fanfare in 2015, was already virtually buried during the debate. The political support has ebbed: the parties that were at the cradle of it are eager to get rid of it. “I would like to say one thing to you all: please do not interfere with the quality agreements,” said Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven. “You must not compromise the certainty that institutions now have.”

Workload

The minister said he was aware of the high workload and the large number of flex contracts at universities. PvdA MP Kirsten van den Hul argued for targeted workload money to be sent to the institutions, just as happened in primary education. Van Engelshoven did not agree with that. A study into the adequacy of funding in higher education is underway and should be ready early next year.

According to the minister, the remedy must come from more predictable funding, although that will mainly be an assignment for her successor. “More stable funding provides more certainty for the institutions, so that better contracts can be awarded to lecturers and researchers. This in turn contributes to the fight against the high workload. I want to pave the way for this by making funding more stable. I therefore think that the institutions should also take steps in this regard. ”

The motions submitted will be voted on on Tuesday 27 October. Amendments and the education budget itself will be put to the vote in December. The second part of the debate (Thursday) is to read back and look back here en here via the website of the House of Representatives. You can watch the first part of last Tuesday Looking back of read back.

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