education

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, adopted a motion that will allow kids in public schools to refuse participating in religious acts during a school trip to a religious institution like a church, mosque or synagogue. Parents can apply for an exemption for their kids, the motion states, RTL Nieuws reports. 

Over the next five years the Dutch government will invest 20 million euros per year into improving education in developing countries, Minister Sigrid Kaag of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation announced at the United Nations in New York. "Education is one of the priorities of my policy. It offers women and young people opportunities for better work and a decent income", she said, NOS reports.

In the coming school year, Amsterdam will tackle the teacher shortage in primary and secondary education with a team of over 60 municipal officials, four of whom have a teaching qualification. The team will support schools with administration or a class assistant. The four qualified officials will teach where necessary, the Volkskrant reports.

Singer Rihanna asked Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Minister Sigrid Kaag of Development Cooperation to donate 100 million dollars to education in developing countries. "I know the Netherlands wanted to pledge to support to global education back in February, so I'd love if you joined me now", she wrote on Twitter.

The singer from Barabods wants the Netherlands to give 100 million dollars to the Global Partnership for Education. She is an ambassador for the organization, according to NOS. 

She ends her tweet with 'Dank je!' - Thank you in Dutch. 

An administrative blunder at the Het Assink Lyceum in Haaksbergen and Eibergen resulted in the diplomas of 570 pupils being declared invalid. These diplomas all state that the pupils passed cum laude, while that is actually only the case for nine of them. The mistake was discovered by a parent, AD reports.

Around 7,900 children in Amsterdam do not yet know who their teacher will be next year, according to BBO, an administrative group of 35 primary schools in the city. Amsterdam primary schools currently still have 315 vacancies, Het Parool reports.

The primary school teacher shortage in Amsterdam is expected to increase to 500 open vacancies by 2023, which means that 15 thousand pupils won't have a teacher.

Not a single pupil in the final examination classes at VMBO Maastricht passed their exams successfully, according to a message the school sent to its 354 final exam pupils. "Before you can get your diploma, you must have completed the school exam with complete success. None of you have done that yet", the message reads, the Teleraaf reports. 

This year and next year secondary vocational schools (VMBO) will receive more money for pupils with a technical profile, Minister Arie Slob for Primary and Secondary Education wrote in a letter to parliament. In this way the government wants to stimulate technical education, he said, NOS reports.

Admission tests for teacher training implemented in 2015 were intended to lead to better students who will actually finish their training. But these tests are not having the desired effect, according to professor on education labor market Frank Corvers in the publication Onderwijs aan het werk 2018, Trouw reports.

A tense few weeks lie ahead for Dutch high school students. The final exams start today for 211,550 high school kids in the Netherlands, RTL Nieuws reports.

VMBO pupils are kicking off the exams with English and Dutch on Monday. HAVO pupils are starting with physics, and VWO pupils have mathematics on the agenda. 

The final exams end on May 29th with more exotic language subjects like Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Turkish. Frisian is also on the program for the last day of exams.

On average 1 in 3 Dutch workers stay with the same employer for ten years or longer, according to figures Statistics Netherlands released on Monday. This happens especially often in the government - 58.9 percent of officials work for the government for at least 10 years.