January 30, 2013

Primary school exam for sale on auction site

Filed under: Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 12:03 pm

Copies of this year’s Cito exam for final year Dutch primary school pupils were found for sale on Dutch online auction site Marktplaats.nl. The Cito exam is usually held in February before children move on to secondary school and it also plays a major role in deciding what level of schooling they will receive as teenagers as well as their chances of going to university.

The education authorities are not sure whether or not they will pull the exam. Some 75% of 165,000 pupils should be taking the leaked Cito exam, while the rest will take one at a lower level that was not leaked, the first time ever a lower level Cito exam is being given. The higher level exam was being sold for € 450.

The authorities have also tried to play down this leak by trying to convince parents that getting a better score won’t help their kids in the long run. Considering the rampant discrimination against students of ethnic minorities, usually urging them to follow a lower level of education than the Dutch even when they have similar Cito exam results, I figure the authorities can take their superior morals and shove it. At least that’s what I would say if I was one of those parents. Oh, and take responsibility for your leaks seriously instead of passing the buck.

(Links: www.nrc.nl, amsterdamherald.com)

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August 24, 2012

Ombudsman investigates children forced to sail to get an education

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:56 am

We reported several times about Laura Dekker, the sailor girl who was allowed to circumnavigate the globe for a year, and more recently we told you about two teenage brothers, Enrique and Hugo who are being denied an education because of their special needs as dyslexics and decided to sail off to get one the same way Dekker did.

The national ombudsman finally got wind of the situation and wants to find out why these kids can’t or don’t attend classes, as there are thousands of them. The brothers set sail today although Child Protection Services recently took their parents to court, but the court is delaying their verdict until December. I bet they are doing this because they know the parents aren’t at fault, and with general elections coming up on September 12, a lot could change in the meantime.

Child Protection Services can’t prosecute the parents for not trying to put their children in a school, as all schools within a large radius have refused the brothers. I don’t understand why the government doesn’t force a school to take them or at least try and resolve this situation. This imbroglio is far from over, and it is quite embarrassing.

Since Dekker got special schooling from the World School once she set sail, the same should apply to these kids or else someone will call out ‘discrimination’. Of course, the problem is that children of school-going age are being kept out of school by the educational system. What’s more, the parents aren’t legally allowed to home school their children, but I really do hope they are, I know I would.

(Link: www.eenvandaag.nl, Photo of a sailboat by the US Navy)

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July 26, 2012

Dyslexic boys sail off just to get a normal education

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:20 pm

Two brothers, Enrique (15) and Hugo (13), both said to be highly intelligent and very dyslexic, have been denied education for more than a year (two years for Enrique) because local schools are unable to provide them with a suitable, adapted education. However, they are required to go to school until the age of 18, and home schooling is forbidden in the Netherlands, so staying home is illegal, but no school will have them. According to television show EenVandaag, some 16,000 children (!) are not attending school because there’s no adapted education for them, something the government keeps cutting down on.

Their mom explains that they had to work hard to read as good as the rest of the class in secondary school, but they couldn’t take proper notes, even legible ones. However, they understand better than the rest everything they are being taught and are being held back because they are dyslexic.

Remember Laura Dekker, the sailor girl who was allowed to circumnavigate the globe for a year? Well, she was allowed adapted education from the World School, so the brothers are going to do the same thing to force the government to give them an education. They are going to pull a ‘Laura Dekker’: they’re going to sail for a year and do their homework. Oh, and they are totally going to hit up children rights’ groups abroad to plead their cause and point fingers at the Ministry of Education. Their dad is a sailor and will follow them around by boat as well as help with their homework.

(Link: www.eenvandaag.nl, Photo of a sailboat by the US Navy)

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December 21, 2011

When parents fight with teachers, children learn nothing

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:40 pm

This year I have met several people who work as school teachers. Some teach children with learning disabilities, others English as a second language, or music. They tell me scary stories of children’s aggressive behaviour towards each other, but also of parents who threaten teachers when their kids get bad grades. It’s as if the teacher is the one responsible for the bad grades, not the kids, and never the parents.

From parents I heard stories of teachers trying to split up twins saying it was good for them, teachers insulting parents for not believing in God and stuff like autism is ‘between your ears’ (Dutch for ‘in your head’) and not taking it into account.

While I went to public school in the 1970s and got beaten up by the kids for speaking the wrong language at the wrong time (French and/or English in Québec), in the Netherlands today it’s apparently the parents and the teachers duking it out. Do parents feel they have no say in their kids’ education? Do teachers feel like no matter what they teach it’s useless? My teachers used to complain about being like the police to keep the kids in check, but the parents and teachers were usually on the same side.

“Dutch teachers are facing an alarming amount of aggressive, disrespectful behaviour from parents. A recent survey of 4,000 Dutch teachers indicates that many parents actively undermine the teacher’s authority in the class, some even resort to threats and violence.”

Watch the video (Dutch with Engilsh voice-over and subtitles)

(Link: www.rnw.nl, Image: screenshot of the RNW video.)

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June 24, 2011

University of Groningen gaining popularity with Brits

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:21 pm

While the slow Dutch students run off to Flanders to finish their studies, the British students in question don’t necessary plan to study up north in Groningen, but their application numbers have gone from 38 to about 100. Big whoop? Not if you can study at a good university for 2,000 euro instead of the 10,000 (9,000 pounds) they will soon have to pay in England. According to the BBC, tuition fees in England will go up from 6,000 to 9,000 pounds as of 2012.

Back in 2010 Maastricht University was busy cashing in on Brits who failed their A-level exams (British entry exams for higher education) by offering degrees in English in eight subjects, with the cost of tuition about half that charged by British universities. The idea behind Maastricht University’s move was to tap into the huge mismatch between demand and supply in the UK in general, amounting to some 150,000-200,000 students missing out on a place.

(Link: rtvnoord.nl)

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February 9, 2011

Flanders fears Dutch invasion of slow students

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:49 pm

De Telegraaf reports that universities in Flemish-speaking Belgium fear an influx of Dutch students once tuition fees in the Netherlands go up for ‘lazy students’.

State secretary for Education Halbe Zijlstra wants to crank up tuition for these students to about 5,000 euro, while studying in Flanders costs a mere 557 euro a year and is of comparable, if not sometimes better quality.

“Dutch students in Flanders already have a bad reputation: at the University of Antwerp Dutch students are twice as likely as Belgians to drop out and the failure rate at the University of Ghent is also very high.”

Under European law, universities are not allowed to discriminate against students from other Member States, and Flemish Minister of Education Peter Smit is keeping his eye on the border crossing. Sounds a bit much? It apparently happened to French-speaking Belgium (aka Wallonia) with an ‘invasion’ of French students some time ago.

And then using the word ‘lazy’ is something Zijlstra himself uses on telly as of late. He feels that someone who takes 7 years to complete a university degree has issues. Then again, stories like having sick parents, having been in an accident and ‘I chose the wrong study programme’ are often heard as responses.

(I took 5 years to finish my 3-year Bachelor’s in Québec because I did two years part-time (had to work part-time to pay for it) and had to do one year over when I switched universities because an entire year was refused by my new university. Laziness was not an issue! Oh and I graduated cum laude.)

(Links : dutchnews via telegraaf)

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November 28, 2010

Internet use of lesser educated people trumps that of better educated people

Filed under: Online by Branko Collin @ 1:53 pm

Says the Trend Report Computer and Internet Usage 2010 of the University of Twente (PDF, p. 54):

The differences [in the amount of Internet use] are the most noticeable where education and social position are taken into account. On average people with a lesser education use the Internet more per day than people with a higher education— some 3.1 as compared to 2.6 hours. The unemployed and people unfit for work use the Internet on average 4.0 and 4.1 hours respectively per day, whereas working people average 2.6 hours. This suggests that the available time is an important factor. […] In the past 20 to 25 years it was the better educated who were the pioneers of Internet access.

The report unfortunately does not define ‘better educated’ and ‘lesser educated’ (in fact, it measures along three education levels, but does not define any of them).

Also notable is that the higher educated use the Internet far more to educate themselves further than the lesser educated do. (p. 41)

(Link: Blik op Nieuws. Photo by Woolie Monster, some rights reserved.)

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October 21, 2010

Fresh Prime Minister Rutte to keep his other job as high school teacher

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Branko Collin @ 10:02 pm

Mark Rutte, the first liberal Dutch Prime Minister since WWI, has told parliament in a letter that he will keep a teaching position at a high school in The Hague.

Rutte teaches a two-hour sociology and civics class (maatschappijleer) to VMBO students at the Johan de Witt College. He won’t be remunerated for his second job, RTL Z reports. Rutte has moved his two-hour class from Friday to Thursday, as the former date would conflict with cabinet meetings.

VMBO is a practice oriented type of secondary school.

Queen Beatrix appointed Rutte and his right-wing cabinet last Thursday, brutally squashing hopes that the Dutch could take back the record for going the longest time without government.

(Photo by Petra de Boevere, some rights reserved)

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June 28, 2010

Rotterdam teachers tested on grading speed

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 2:11 pm

Not only does Hogeschool Rotterdam test its students, it is also planning to ‘test’ its teachers. After having received many complaints from students about having to wait too long to get their test scores, the school will now evaluate its teachers based on the turnaround time for grading exams, according to De Telegraaf.

If a teacher takes longer than 20 working days to come up with a grade for any given test, they will be denied a raise at the end of the year, writes Algemeen Dagblad.

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February 7, 2010

AEX CEOs mostly graduate from Rotterdam and Delft

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:23 pm

If you want to become a CEO or a supervisor of one of the 25 Dutch companies that make up the AEX, the index of the country’s most actively traded securities, you’d better study economics in Rotterdam or civil engineering in Delft, Z24 reports.

Together, both universities have produced the majority of current CEOs and supervisors of AEX companies. The oldest university of the country, that of Leiden, and the largest universities, those of Amsterdam and Utrecht, play lesser roles in supplying large Dutch companies with their management. Fifteen of the 25 CEOs are graduates of either Rotterdam (8) or Delft (7).

(Photo of the Berlage stock exchange by Flickr user Taver, some rights reserved)

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