Dutch schools still falling short on appropriate education: council

Dutch schools still do not specialize enough, which means that not every child gets the specialist support he or she needs, the Education Council wrote in a letter to State Secretary Sander Dekker of Education, NU.nl reports.

The system for appropriate education was implemented in the Netherlands two years ago, and is still not completely up to scratch, according to the letter. The intention behind appropriate education is that more children with extra needs be able to attend a mainstream school.

The Education Council sees two main problems that stand in the way of the system being successful. Firstly, there is too little information to sufficiently follow pupils who are in need of appropriate education. And secondly, supply and demand are not balanced everywhere.

Schools are reluctant to specialize, resulting in some children not getting the support they need. There is also a negative image about appropriate education among teachers and school boards, according to the Education council.

The Council calls on schools to work together to fix these problems. Teachers also need to be better trained to provide specialist support.