Politicians, Inspectorate concerned over quality differences at Dutch schools

The Education Inspectorate for the first time compared Dutch schools and their students' results and found major differences. The Inspectorate concluded that a student's performance strongly depends on the type of school the child attends. Minister Jet Bussemaker and State Secretary Sander Dekker of Education call the situation worrying, NOS reports.

According to the Inspectorate, the differences in schools' quality mean that many of the students don't utilize their talents. This leads to large differences in results, even when taking differences between students into account. Students of some primary schools on average get 10 to 20 points less on their final tests than other primary schools with the same composition of students. Among high schools, the students at one school were 20 percent less likely to graduate than any other high school in the country.

The Inspectorate attributes the differences with the variations in how well a school uses their students' talents. Schools with better results have strong teams of teachers and involved school leaders. Schools with poor results show high absenteeism, bigger differences among teachers and more unqualified teachers in the classroom.

The Education Inspectorate will start discussions with the management of underperforming schools.