High school students have 2 to 4 hours of canceled lessons per week

Secondary school students in the Netherlands have an average of between two and four hours of canceled lessons every week due to the teacher shortage, Trouw reports based on a study done with Investico and parent organization Ouders & Onderwijs. Parents are concerned.

Over 500 parents calculated the lesson cancellations via their child’s school app for the last two weeks of September and the first two weeks of October. In 67 percent of cases, the kids had an hour off, sometimes with homework guidance. VMBO scored the worst, with a dropout rate of almost 13 percent of its weekly lessons. At HAVO, that was 10.5 percent, and at VWO over 11 percent per week.

Half of the surveyed parents are worried. A third said that their children appear to be falling behind. “Certainly, when the exam is approaching, or a child threatens to fail a year, the concerns grow,” Lobke Vlaming of Ouders & Onderwijs said to the newspaper. “We hear: My child hasn’t had maths for three weeks but still has to write the test.”

Student association Laks also hears concerns, chairman Janouke van Meerveld said. “Our students report that tests happen despite canceled classes in two-thirds of the cases. They indicate that they feel they haven’t received enough explanation. That causes stress for a large proportion of the students.”

The researchers found that schools don’t inform 70 percent of parents about why a lesson was canceled. In 40 percent of canceled classes, parents said it was because the teacher got sick and the school couldn’t find a substitute.

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, will debate the teacher shortage on Thursday.