Dutch schools struggling to provide proper materials for students with special needs
There is currently no suitable teaching material in the Netherlands for special education, particularly for secondary special education and for students with disabilities or developmental delays, a NOS report has stated.
Learners in special education (SO/VSO) frequently rely on textbooks and curricula created for regular schools, even though these do not align with their abilities or needs. For example, some 16-year-olds are still using materials designed for first-year primary students (group 3), which is clearly unsuitable for their educational development.
Publishers view creating specialized teaching materials for special education students as financially unviable, according to the NOS. With around 110,000 students in the Netherlands facing learning, behavioral, or physical/cognitive challenges, the market is considered too small or specialized to justify the investment in dedicated methods.
Regular school curricula often fail to match the learning style, speed, and experiences of SO students. Educators emphasize that special education needs extra steps, more repetition, and an alternative structure, features that mainstream methods usually do not provide.
Using unsuitable teaching materials for students with special needs can hinder their learning and reduce their self-sufficiency, particularly in the skills crucial for everyday life and active participation in society.
Educators frequently need to develop their own resources or modify standard teaching methods, a process that demands significant time and energy and does not always yield successful outcomes.
Attempts are being made to fix the issue. A national platform for appropriate educational materials, such as “GOpen”, has been developed through collaboration between schools and stakeholders to gather resources and better meet the needs of SO students. Yet, government funding remains inadequate and uncertain beyond 2030, threatening the long-term sustainability of this initiative.
The issue of inadequate teaching materials is part of a larger problem in the Netherlands’ special education system. There is a growing number of students entering special education because mainstream schools lack sufficient support and resources. This comes while there are significant teacher shortages, especially in special education.
The “passend onderwijs” (inclusive education) framework, introduced in 2014, continues to generate concern, as some reports indicate it has yet to meet all its objectives.
