OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education NETHERLANDS OECD Reviews of Evaluation How can student assessment, teacher appraisal, school evaluation and system evaluation bring about real gains in performance across a country’s school system? The country reports in this series provide, from and Assessment in Education an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the evaluation and assessment framework, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches. This series forms part of the OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes. Contents NETHERLANDS Chapter 1. School education in the Netherlands Deborah Nusche, Henry Braun, Chapter 2. The evaluation and assessment framework Gábor Halász and Paulo Santiago Chapter 3. Student assessment Chapter 4. Teacher appraisal Chapter 5. School evaluation Chapter 6. Education system evaluation OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education www.oecd.org/edu/evaluationpolicy NETHERLANDS Consult this publication on line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264211940-en. This work is published on the OECD iLibrary, which gathers all OECD books, periodicals and statistical databases. Visit www.oecd-ilibrary.org for more information. ISBN 978-92-64-21193-3 91 2014 04 1 P 9HSTCQE*cbbjdd+ OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Netherlands 2014 Deborah Nusche, Henry Braun, Gábor Halász and Paulo Santiago This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of OECD member countries. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. Please cite this publication as: Nusche, D., et al. (2014), OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Netherlands 2014, OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264211940-en ISBN 978-92-64-21193-3 (print) ISBN 978-92-64-21194-0 (PDF) Series: OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education ISSN 2223-0947 (print) ISSN 2223-0955 (online) The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law. Photo credits: Cover © iQoncept - Fotolia.com, © AKS - Fotolia.com, © Sergej Khackimullin - Fotolia.com. Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/about/publishing/corrigenda.htm. © OECD 2014 You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgment of the source and copyright owner is given. All requests for public or commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to [email protected]. Requests for permission to photocopy portions of this material for public or commercial use shall be addressed directly to the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at [email protected] or the Centre français d’exploitation du droit de copie (CFC) at [email protected]. FOREWORD – 3 Foreword This report for the Netherlands forms part of the OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes (see Annex A). The purpose of the Review is to explore how systems of evaluation and assessment can be used to improve the quality, equity and efficiency of school education. The Review looks at pupil assessment, teacher appraisal, school leader appraisal, school evaluation and system evaluation, and how these help to improve pupils’ learning. The Netherlands’ involvement in the OECD Review was co-ordinated by Hans Stegeman at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and Marian Hulshof at the Inspectorate of Education, assisted by Jessica Villamil. The Netherlands opted to participate in the country review strand of the international project and host a visit by an external review team. Members of the OECD review team were Deborah Nusche (OECD), co-ordinator of the review; Henry Braun (Professor of Education and Public Policy in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College), Gábor Halász (Professor of Education in the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology at the University Eötvös Loránd in Budapest) and Paulo Santiago (OECD) (see Annex C). This publication is the report from the OECD review team. It provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the evaluation and assessment framework in the Netherlands, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches. The report serves three purposes: (1) provide insights and advice to the Dutch authorities; (2) help other OECD countries understand the Dutch approach; (3) improve the international knowledge on evaluation and assessment policies. An important part of the Netherlands’ involvement was the preparation of a Country Background Report (CBR) on evaluation and assessment policy developed by Jaap Scheerens, Melanie Ehren, Peter Sleegers and Renske de Leeuw (2012) at the University of Twente. In addition, an Update to the Country Background Report was developed by Jaap Scheerens (2013) in preparation of the OECD review visit. The OECD review team is grateful to the authors and to all those who assisted them for compiling these high quality and informative reports as background to the review and analysis. The CBR and the Update are important outputs from the OECD project in its own right as well as an important source for the OECD review team. Unless indicated otherwise, the data for this report are taken from the Dutch CBR and the Update. The CBR follows guidelines prepared by the OECD Secretariat and provides extensive information, analysis and discussion in regard to the national context, the organisation of the school system, the main features of the evaluation and assessment framework and the views of key stakeholders. In this sense, the CBR and this OECD review report complement each other and, for a more comprehensive view of evaluation and assessment in the Netherlands, should be read in conjunction. The review visit to the Netherlands took place on 3-10 June 2013. The itinerary is provided in Annex B. The visit was designed by the OECD in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Inspectorate of Education. During the review visit, the team held discussions with a wide range of officials within the Ministry OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: NETHERLANDS © OECD 2014 4 – FOREWORD of Education, Culture and Science, the Inspectorate of Education, the Central Institute for Test Development, the College for Examinations, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Court of Audit, the Education Council, the Primary and Secondary Education Councils, the Institute for Curriculum Development and the National Knowledge Centre on Special Education. The review team also met with stakeholder groups including representatives of teacher, school leader, student and parent organisations, teacher education institutions, educational service centres, private test providers, and researchers with an interest in evaluation and assessment issues. The team visited a range of schools, interacting with representatives of the school boards, school leadership teams, teachers, students and parents in The Hague and its surrounds and also in Hulshorst, Groningen and Rotterdam. The intention was to provide a broad cross-section of information and opinions on evaluation and assessment policies and how their effectiveness can be improved. The OECD review team wishes to express its sincere gratitude to all those who took time to meet with us and to share their insights. Our overwhelming memory is of a warm welcome wherever we went and frank, open, constructive and stimulating discussions. We wish to thank the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Inspectorate for Education for meeting our challenging demands to organise a review visit that allowed us to learn different perspectives from many different stakeholders (see Annex B). In particular, we warmly thank Hans Stegeman, Marian Hulshof and Jessica Villamil for accompanying us at different stages of the review, making sure that everything ran smoothly and allowing us to concentrate on learning from the people we met. The courtesy and hospitality extended to us throughout our stay in the Netherlands made our task as a review team as pleasant and enjoyable as it was stimulating and challenging. In particular, during the OECD review, we asked all stakeholders to provide us with information and evidence on assessment and evaluation practices in the Netherlands. We wish to extend particular thanks to all those who chose to do so and to send research and information on practices to us during and after the review visit. This vast information base formed a rich resource and helped the OECD review team to develop a deeper understanding of evaluation and assessment in the Netherlands. While our report may not refer explicitly to some of this material, it was invaluable in underpinning our initial analysis. Any misunderstandings or misinterpretations