VO

Broad bridge class? Now it's the parents' turn

Due to shrinkage, competition and the outspoken preference of parents, the first grades have become increasingly homogeneous. The cabinet wants to stimulate broader first years again. The Education Council wants to go one step further: one broad bridging period of three years.

Tekst Robert Sikkes - Redactie Onderwijsblad - - 11 Minuten om te lezen

broad-first grade illustration

Picture: Type tank

In the spring of 2021, the Education Council issued far-reaching advice: a national structural change in education to reduce inequality of opportunity. The core of the proposal is the postponement of selection on the existing interface between primary and secondary education. The final test disappears and secondary education starts with a three-year broad bridging period. At the end of this, an independent test follows that indicates which step a pupil can take to the upper secondary education. According to the Education Council, it is essential that the new structure is implemented 'everywhere simultaneously and integrally', because 'step-by-step adjustments will have insufficient or undesired effects'

Our education system creates inequality

Unequal opportunities

The advice Select later, differentiate better fits seamlessly into the discussion about the growing dichotomy in society. Unequal educational opportunities, the gap in the housing market, the dichotomy in the labor market, wealth inequality. Can a different educational structure reverse these social trends? It is about what education can do, emphasizes Edith Hooge, chair of the Education Council. “Our education system is now creating inequality. Ingrained in the structure are mechanisms that increase unequal opportunities. The biggest bottleneck is the final test in group 8. This is not a test that looks at how you can develop further as a child, but a selection moment. For many students this comes too early, but due to the increasingly homogeneous first year classes they end up on a path - a type of school - from which it is difficult to switch. We can reverse that trend. A three-year bridging period softens that selection system. Incidentally, after that period, we will argue in favor of selection, with an independent test that determines the next steps.”

Can an educational structure reverse social trends?

middle school

Postponement of selection: it has been an educational ideal since the introduction of the Mammoetwet in 1963. The information material for parents of the new school structure cheerfully states: 'After primary school, there is one year of first year. This class is the first class for all school types. After the seventh grade, one can still change school type and choose a higher or lower school type.' A nice plan that doesn't get much done, simply because the first years are mainly linked to categorical schools. Change rarely happens, slightly more often in school communities that are created for mavo/havo/vwo.

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Reason for PvdA minister Jos van Kemenade to make plans in 1975 for a middle school for all pupils from twelve to fifteen. So that there really is a postponement of study and career choice. Van Kemenade is only given room in the House of Representatives to start a few experiments, there is no political support whatsoever for complete implementation. Within education itself, there is also great division. The unions that later AOb forms are completely opposite to each other: the Abop is outspoken in favor, the NGL strongly against. When both unions decide to cooperate in 1993, there is still no political support. For pragmatic reasons, the Abop bids farewell to the ideal, so that the merger with the NGL runs smoothly on that point.

In the meantime, in the same 1993, the introduction of basic education is planned. One substantive educational program for all pupils from twelve to fifteen years old, which can be given at several levels, but within the existing school structure. Boards receive a subsidy to form more school communities, so that broad first-year classes are created there.

There will be some broad bridge classes, but the roof tile bridge class will become dominant. Especially havo/vwo and vmbo/mavo. A process that arises from the pressure of the renewed superstructure. It aims at the 'royal road': from the study house to HBO and university, with the addition of VMBO as preparatory training for MBO. The effect of the basic education is thus not a broad foundation, but a dichotomy. 'An educational ideal shattered', it notes Education magazine therefore during the evaluation in 1999. Former Secretary of State Jacques Wallage is disappointed. 'The selectivity of education has been strengthened.' Well no, thinks Jan Engberts at the time, who as director had to bring VMBO and MAVO together. 'We used to have a three-way division between VBO, MAVO and HAVO/VWO. A dichotomy is better then.'

The effect of the basic education was not a broad foundation, but a dichotomy

But it didn't stop at that dichotomy. Early selection in secondary education has only increased in the years since. Since 2005, school boards have started to split their roof tile classes en masse due to shrinkage and competition. Parents prefer to see the apples of their eye with a pre-university education recommendation go to a homogeneous pre-university secondary education. The same happens at havo and vmbo-g/t. The market share of schools that opt ​​for homogeneous first-year classes is increasing.

Parents prefer to see their apples with a vwo advice go to a homogeneous vwo bridge class

Take, for example, the Ir. Lely Lyceum in the Amsterdam Southeast district. That said goodbye to the pre-vocational secondary education basic and framework, and is presenting itself with a gymnasium, bilingual education and a technasium. 'You have to specialize', says director Jeroen Rijlaarsdam recently of Volkskrant.
Registrations have skyrocketed in five years. According to him, primary and secondary students are better off at the neighboring Bijlmer Open School Community, a former middle school. Its director, Maryse Knook, notes in the same newspaper that 'unfortunately it is simply a fact that if you reject those lower levels, you will do better as a school'. So it's up to the parents.

Moreover, in the fight for the pupil, half of the independent gymnasia accept pupils with a HAVO/VWO recommendation, the book states. the gymnasium by journalist Mirjam Remie. Whether they realize that they are emptying HAVO/VWO departments of comprehensive comprehensive schools, Henk Hagoort, chairman of the VO Council, recently noted. in a blog† More and more community schools are therefore more often starting with separate pre-university or gymnasium classes in the first year. The comprehensive school communities have also had to make financial sacrifices: in 2008 the Balkenende IV cabinet scraps the bonus of 84 million euros for these schools. All these developments together - shrinkage, the choice of the parents, money - make that in 2020 the homogeneous first year is dominant.

Cover

In recent years, it has rained advice, reports and experiments such as the 10-14 school to put a stop to the increasingly earlier selection. Because the corona crisis increases the inequality of opportunity, later selection is high on the political agenda. In the run-up to the National Education Program (NPO), the Municipality of Amsterdam and the Secondary Education Council are explicitly advocating to include a subsidy for broader bridge classes, which preferably last more than one year. That idea is even supported by the Ministry of Finance, according to an internal e-mail that became public through a WOB request. 'Use the conversations to get a number of things that we have wanted for some time (broad first grade…) done and include in them', writes the Inspectorate of National Finance.

Subsidy broad first year mainly used to improve the existing situation. Source: DUS-I The total adds up to more than 100 percent because multiple goals can be combined.

It happens. In the NPO will come early 2021 a new subsidy pot of more than 100 million euros to stimulate broad bridge classes. A maximum of one ton per location. The conditions are quite broad. One new broad first year next to several homogeneous ones already yields money. It also includes 'further development or improvement' of existing heterogeneous bridging classes. In the first tranche of more than 50 million euros do the 506 approved applications count together 823 plans.
The further development or improvement of existing broad bridge classes is by far the favourite, at 88 percent. The broadening of homogeneous bridge classes to roof tile classes occurs in 24 percent of the applications. It doesn't really look like a cover.

Elitist

The design of the NPO marks a slight change of course for the coalition VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie. For Rutte III, the 2017 coalition agreement still states: 'Some children thrive best in a broad or extended first year where the final selection is postponed for a while, others are more appropriate in a categorical first year.' In 2017, school boards will be tasked with ensuring that this choice can be made in each region. At the end of December 2021, a slightly different sound will be heard in the coalition agreement for Rutte IV. 'We encourage broad and extended first years with an eye for the talents of each student.' The temporary subsidy for broad bridge classes from the NPO will be structural.

So a bit of progress when it comes to deferring selection. But is that sufficient for a breakthrough in the trend from increasingly homogeneous bridge classes to more broad bridge classes? Because the circumstances under which the postponement of selection must take place are not optimal. The shrinkage continues. According to the forecasts, the number of first-year students will shrink by an average of 6 percent over the next five years, further intensifying competition between schools. Do schools opt for the wish of the most assertive parents - homogeneous classes - or for the educational ideal - postponement of selection? And when a broad bridging period comes, doesn't that encourage the growth of private education so that parents still have a way out?

Ever earlier selection due to growth of homogeneous classes. Due to shrinkage and competition to bring in the most first graders, schools followed the parents' wish from 2000: more homogeneous first grades of only vwo, havo or mavo. In 2020, that homogeneous first grade is dominant. Source: PVMO 1992-1997, CBS 2005-2020.

For example, England and France have community schools in public education, but 15 to 20 percent opt ​​for elite private education. Meanwhile, grumbling about the Education Council's advice is increasing in opinion pieces and blogs. The picture that some independent gymnasia paint is that the smart early bloomer benefits from earlier selection and receives education in a protected environment with like-minded people. Other opinion makers point to the lack of support among parents, politicians and some of the teachers, as was also the case at the middle school at the time.

“People who are least affected by inequality of opportunity will be least in favor of our proposal,” said Education Council chairman Edith Hooge. “But we think it's important to talk about opportunities for everyone. A large group of which needs more time before selection is made. We have to get past the discussion in the media 'can the gymnasium continue to exist'. Subsequent selection is a tried and proven recipe for increasing equity.”

Subsequent selection is a tried and proven recipe for increasing equity

Variation

What the Education Council advocates are no broad first-year classes where one teacher teaches a packed group of thirty students with roughly six levels that he must all achieve. This is a three-year bridging period with a lot of flexibility. There is a common core - in which the quality of the basic skills of language and arithmetic have priority - but further variation.

In tempo, in groups and choice of subjects. For example, practical subjects at a higher level for what are now HAVO or VWO students. Or classical languages ​​for a much larger target group than now. The final test in primary education will disappear, but it will return at the end of the bridging period. In a different form, where testing is broader, but with consequences: at the age of fifteen, tests determine which direction is possible in the upper secondary education.

Profit and loss per type of first grade 2005-2020. Source: CBS

As far as the Education Council is concerned, it is essential in that process that the new system is introduced at once, in order to stop competition to bring in first-year students. Chairman Hooge does not see that private education is then jumping into the gap to offer homogeneous classes. According to the Education Council, the growth of private education in recent years has not been in -expensive- private schools, but rather in final test training and tutoring for the final exam.

“We give politics the direction on a silver platter. Now it's about political will and skills to enter such a radical process,” says Hooge. “Our education system is not in order in many respects. Teacher shortages, housing needs to be improved, the level of basic skills is too low, inequality is too great. The basics have to be in order, but you can't stop thinking about the inequality that is ingrained in our system. That's urgent, you can't pass it up. The Mammoetwet required five years to prepare. Here you will also have to decide to go in this direction and take roughly five to seven years for implementation. And that's what the government has to do, it doesn't come from the bottom up."

'First the basics in order'
“We have a huge teacher shortage and then you have to ask yourself whether you are ready for this. We think it's wiser to get the basics right first, then drastic changes," says Jelmer Evers, daily director of secondary education at the AOb† Because not only some of the parents do not see anything in broad first years, opinions are also divided among secondary education teachers. “Improving equality of opportunity is of course good, but the implementation is extremely complicated. It requires direction from the ministry, it requires investments in the professionalism of teachers, coordination between schools. I call it realistic that we question this. That is not a veto of the trade union movement, but a check whether it is all feasible for teachers. In the meantime, we can flow up and make stacking easier again. Stimulate comprehensive school communities and broad first years. Much remains to be done before a real turnaround can take place. And then I think of smaller classes and smaller establishments. This is better for students and makes it possible for teachers to provide better education. And everything starts with enough teachers, getting rid of the shortage has for the AOb priority."

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