Thousands of Dutch pupils still waiting for school books

Thousands of high school students across the Netherlands are still waiting for their school books. School book supplier Van Dijk Educatie is struggling with major delivery problems, De Stentor reports.

Schools calling Van Dijk to complain are met with an automated message in which the company acknowledges the problems, according to the newspaper. The supplier estimates that about 7,500 high school pupils do not have their complete learning package yet. Some haven't received any books.

Van Dijk Educatie handles over two thirds of the teaching material for secondary education, according to the company. This involves 11 million books every year.

The book supplier blames the late and incomplete delivery on two factors. First that schools and pupils placed orders late. "We ask our customers to order on time. But just before the schools started in the north on Monday, we received three thousand orders. We were not able to deliver on time", a spokesperson said to De Stentor.

Secondly, the company is short-staffed. "Normally we have four thousand vacation workers, this year we had 3,600", the spokesperson said. "Four hundred pairs of hands really make a difference, considering that 350 thousand book packages must be put together and as many packages come back."

Van Dijk hopes that the problems will be solved by the end of this week.

The VO-Raad, the council for high schools in the Netherlands, is aware of the delivery problems and wants to discuss it with Van Dijk.