Gifted schools worried about government plans; Special education needs more support

Schools for gifted children are very concerned about the government’s plans to cut their budget by 4.7 million euros. They fear that they will no longer be able to properly support all the children who need them and hope that parliament will scrap the budget cut. Special education as a whole is also beyond its limits and pleading for extra support.

The previous government doubled the subsidy for gifted education to 28 million euros at the end of 2022 after years of lobbying from the education sector. “That means that this, two years later, has come as a shock to us,” Marieke Broenink of the gifted department of SALTO school ‘t Karregat in Eindhoven told Nieuwsuur. The primary school offers shortened regular lessons for gifted kids who get stuck in regular school and spend the rest of the time on extra subjects or in-depth lessons.

According to Anouke Bakx, a special professor of giftedness at Radboud University, gifted children can come into serious problems at regular schools. “Of course, it can lead to boredom, but also to social or emotional problems or underachievement,” she told the program.

Gifted schools are only part of the appropriate education that the government promised ten years ago, promising a suitable place in education for every child. The demand for special education has increased significantly since then, as has the number of children sitting at home and not attending school, Pointer reported.

A recent study by independent research agency Oberon showed that special education has grown nationally 16 percent since 2015 and 29 percent of special schools now have a waiting list. The number of children not attending school increased from 3,892 in the 2014/15 school year to 8,311 in the 2022/23 school year. Ingrado, the trade association for compulsory education estimates that this number is eight times higher.

At the same time, the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science is also planning to cut the budget for getting kids sitting at home to attend school by 8.7 million euros.

“The education system in the Netherlands is coming to a standstill,” Alain van de Haar, the director-manger of the GO-Raad, the umbrella organization for special education, told Pointer. More and more children drop out because there are not enough teachers and resources to offer them the support they need.

“Simply because attention and care for these children is under pressure,” Van de Haar said. “If the necessary care around school is not provided, a child will continue to sink further and further away and will be forced to leave regular education.”

The cuts to gifted education and the truancy fund are part of a large package of budget cuts totaling over 360 million euros in subsidies for culture and all levels of education. The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, will debate the education budget on November 28.