Teachers furious about planned budget cut on primary education

The government is planning to cut tens of millions of euros from the primary education budget, according to the PO-Raad, the sector organization for primary education in the Netherlands. The cuts amounts to 61 million euros in the coming years, and is due to accumulating deficits in the education budget of previous years, RTL Nieuws reports. 

The PO-Raad is furious that deficits on the previous government's Ministry of Education budget is now being transferred to the new government.

"It is irresponsible that further cuts are being made. The cuts also overshadow the additional investment announced by the cabinet to increase salaries in primary education and reduce the workload", Rinda den Besten, chairman of the PO-Raad, said to the broadcaster.

According to Den Besten, this additional investment was already insufficient for addressing the problems in primary education. "With cuts on top of this, the government is putting education another step behind."

Salary increases for primary school teachers caused quite a few arguments during the government formation talks, and for a while it seemed that the topic would topple the previous VVD-PvdA government during the last days of its rule. The issue culminated in a nationwide teacher strike on October 5th. The new government agreed to invest around 500 million euros into reducing primary school teachers' workloads and another 270 million euros to increase their salaries.