The future

Ongoing debates and reforms

Points of departure for the education policy of the present government are the strengthening of the knowledge infrastructure in The Netherlands, social cohesion through participation in social and economic relationships and avoidance and reduction of ‘achterstand’.

The demand for pluriformity in education is increasing because people become more individualistic and society multicultural. In addition, parents, pupils and students wish to increase their influence on the content and quality of education.

In this context the following issues are under debate:

• more attention during the pre-school period for those children who grow in non-Dutch speaking families;
• the establishment of neighbourhood schools that incorporate childcare, child minding, library etc.
• to make the system of study financing more flexible to keep pace with the increasing variety of study forms and study trajectories;
• the institutions will be granted greater flexibility in the implementation of education programmes;
• more attention for the individual learner by decreasing class sizes and improving the quality of teaching;
• learners will get the chance to arrive at their learning goals via differentiated trajectories;
• the integration of ict in education will be speeded up;
• the teaching profession will get more attention, both quantitative as well as qualitative aspects.

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