Countryside Kids' Disadvantage

Although primary school pupils in the rural areas score better in standardized testing and get better school references than city school children do, they often choose to go to secondary education. This is one of the conclusions of the report De Dorpenmonitor of the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP), which was presented on Thursday. In primary schools, village children perform better than their peers in the city. They also get referred to HAVO or VWO more. However, that recommendation is not always followed and thus a great many of the rural children go to secondary education instead. Researchers say this is due to the fact students in the rural areas and their parents seem to be less ambitious. In addition, there are more pre-vocational schools in the rural areas and schools that offer HAVO and VWO are often far away. Hence, the smaller and more remote the village is, the lower the average level of education is. "That is not a desirable situation," say the researchers. After all, HAVO or VWO is needed in order to qualify for higher education or university education. It is unfortunate not only for the children themselves but also for the Netherlands because much potential for economic production is lost in this way. According to the SCP, other factors include the fact that the economic crisis struck the rural areas, the local labor market is stagnant and the production of houses is virtually dead. Furthermore, unemployment is relatively higher than in cities and spendable income is actually lower than in cities. On top of these, it appears that relatively many 'promising youth' leave the countryside. In contrast, the countryside attracts the highly educated elderly. The 5.3 million people who live in a village often have good social contact with one another. “Villagers often have more comfortable interaction with their neighbors than city dwellers do,” concludes the SCP. While they do not actually help their neighbors more often, they volunteer more often to contribute to the quality of life in their neighborhood.