Dozens of secondary schools want to improve quality by cutting down on lessons

At least 40 secondary schools want to participate in an experiment in which students will spend fewer hours in lessons than the law requires, and teachers will use that extra time to improve the quality of their education. The goal is to reduce pressure on teachers and make the profession more attractive without disadvantaging the students, Trouw reports.

Schools that want to participate in the experiment can sign up until February 17. The Education Inspectorate agreed not to reprimand participating schools for not meeting the statutory teaching time.

The number of hours per student in the Netherlands is about 25 percent above the European average. Despite this, many other countries have better learning performance. That shows that more lessons are not necessarily better, rector Marcel van Dijk of the Vecthstede College in Weesp told the newspaper. “The large number of teaching hours puts pressure on both students and employees,” he said.

His school anticipated the experiment and already started a schedule with 40-minute lessons instead of 45 minutes in September, resulting in shorter teaching days. When the students leave in the afternoon, the teachers work on developing teaching materials, attend workshops, or discuss education. According to Van Dijk, teachers, students, and parents are almost all happy with the new schedule.

The official experiment will kick off later this year, with some participating schools starting after the summer and others in August 2025. The initiators are the education unions and the VO-Raad, the council for secondary education. Around 40 schools have signed up so far.

Henk Hagoort of the VO-Raad thinks that giving teachers more time to work on their lessons will only improve school performance. “We hear from teachers that they now work a bit on autopilot and follow the teaching methods,” he said to Trouw. “The pride and joy in the profession lies in being able to prepare lessons. If they are given more time for this, I expect the lessons to be of greater quality and to offer students more tailor-made solutions.”

“The crux is that schools encourage teachers to shape the curriculum more themselves. That gives them more autonomy,” Hagoort said. He thinks that will make lessons more engaging for students and make the profession more attractive - retaining existing teachers and recruiting new ones.

According to Jelmer Evers of the education union Aob, not all teachers are enthusiastic about the experiment. “Many members are critical. They are afraid that it will be at the expense of their profession, We, therefore, believe that this experiment should really be supported from the bottom up and should not be imposed by school boards,” he said. He stressed that the main part of the experiment is to reduce teachers’ workload, “And we will keep a close eye on that.”