Parent group sues Dutch state over tens of thousands of kids out of school
A Dutch parent association has filed a lawsuit against the State over what it says is a failure to provide adequate education for children who cannot be served in standard classrooms, NOS reports. The organization argues the Dutch education system is designed primarily for what it calls the “average child” and fails to accommodate students with diverse needs, including autism, giftedness, language difficulties, and behavioral or learning challenges.
The case, brought by Oudervereniging Balans, comes amid government figures showing that in the 2024-2025 school year, 16,351 children were not enrolled in any school and 4,804 enrolled students were absent for at least four weeks. Government-commissioned research estimates the broader group of disengaged students could exceed 60,000 across primary, secondary, special education, and vocational education. Balans says the total number of affected children is closer to 70,000 when including all categories of so-called “home sitters.”
Balans director Joli Luijckx said the system leaves many children without any viable school placement. “These are children for whom there is no suitable educational offer,” she told NU.nl. “Some have difficulty with reading or language. In any case, they are all children who are different from the ‘average child’ on which the education system is based.”
She also criticized the structure of "inclusive education," introduced in 2014. “When inclusive education was introduced, special education was supposed to shrink, and its staff would support mainstream schools. That has not succeeded anywhere,” she said.
Luijckx added that administrative processes often replace direct support. “At times there are multidisciplinary meetings with as many as twelve people discussing a case of a child they do not even know. Instead of that bureaucratic route, we would prefer that expertise and staffing go directly to the child, the teacher, and the classroom,” she said. “It is no longer acceptable that children are excluded from appropriate education due to shortcomings in the system. The education system is the problem, not the student,” she added.
The Dutch government says rising absenteeism is largely driven by children who were never enrolled, including newcomers such as Ukrainian children, as well as delays in youth care services and administrative issues in municipalities.
One of the students affected is Iris Kok, 18, who left school four years ago after severe performance anxiety in secondary school. She described losing more than education. “I have missed so much more than just education: social contact, a daily routine, and knowing what your future will look like,” she told NU.nl.
She said leaving school led to deeper isolation. “Because I was no longer going to school, I was no longer used to it. It had become something very large in my mind,” she said.
Kok later enrolled in a single subject in adult education, where she initially performed well. “That went really well, I was able to keep up,” she said. “But eventually I dropped out again because I absolutely had to take exams. It would have helped me enormously if I had not had to take those exams yet.”
She is now taking a course at the Open University and hopes to eventually study behavioral biology. “Studying has always been my dream. That is what I was working toward in school. Maybe that is also part of why I dropped out, because it became something so big in my mind,” she told the newspaper.
Parents of younger children also describe breakdowns in coordination between schools and support services. Marieke Wissink's 10-year-old son stopped attending school about a year and a half ago after initially positive early school years. His difficulties escalated over time, with increasing school avoidance and no clear early intervention.
Wissink said the system failed to coordinate care and education. “Because he showed no behavioral problems in class and his academic results were within the acceptable range, the school saw little reason to make adjustments,” she told NOS.
She added that meaningful coordination between school, youth care, and parents only occurred after three years and only at the family’s request. Her son now attends a workshop-based learning environment in Leiden twice a week, funded privately, while recovering from what the family describes as a traumatic school experience.
The Ministry of Education is working on a transition from inclusive education to a broader system of fully inclusive schooling, aiming for most schools to adopt the model by 2035.
The government says the reforms should reduce the number of home-sitting students, though Balans argues that key conditions such as smaller class sizes, sufficient staff, accessible buildings, and specialist expertise are still missing.
Legal experts are skeptical about the lawsuit’s chances. Emeritus professor Paul Zoontjens told NU.nl the group is too diverse for courts to impose a general obligation on the state to place every child. Professor Pieter Huisman said the case appears aimed at forcing government action similar to the Urgenda climate ruling but noted that any legal violation would likely depend on discriminatory policy rather than implementation problems, which he said are the core issue.
