UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Overheid en onderwijsbestel: beleidsvorming rond het Nederlandse onderwijsstelsel (1990-2010) Helmers, H.M. Publication date 2011 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Helmers, H. M. (2011). Overheid en onderwijsbestel: beleidsvorming rond het Nederlandse onderwijsstelsel (1990-2010). Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:04 Oct 2021 summary Summary 1. Background and research questions ‘Education shall be the constant concern of the Government’. That is stated in Arti- cle 23(1) of the Dutch Constitution. Given the new administrative relations in the Netherlands, creating a cohesive, soundly functioning education system and educational context is perhaps the most important task facing the Dutch government today. In seek- ing to fulfil that task, the government has become largely dependent on the behaviour of the governing boards of schools and other education institutes at local level. This study explores the question of how the government has sought to fulfil its responsibility over the last 20 years. This question is based on two important political and administrative developments. Politically, there has been a shift in recent decades from ‘makeability’ to market forces. At the same time, at administrative level there has been a move away from centralised to devolved decision-making. It is not only the position and role of the government that have changed over the last 20 years; other players in the policy arena have also seen their influence undergo radical changes. Two concepts are central in this study: education system and educational context. The education system denotes the infrastructure of schools and education institutes, school types and education programmes, as well as the legislation and regulations which govern them. The educational context is a broader concept, incorporating not just the education system as such, but also the institutionalised setting which influences it: the entire body of government authorities, agencies and organisations within and outside the education field which are concerned with the functioning, continued existence and development of the education system. The development of policy in relation to the education system and the educational context is described in this study on the basis of four fairly unique features of the Dutch education system: – freedom of education (Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution); – the relationship between mainstream and special education; – (early) selection in the transition from primary to secondary education; – the position and function of senior secondary vocational education. Agenda-building and policy development often occur as the result of a perceived system- ic problem. A systemic problem exists if situations arise in the structure or configuration of the education system that are regarded as detrimental from the perspective of a given criterion (principle or norm). This study distinguishes between three types of systemic problem: – transitional and matching problems between and within education sectors; – problems resulting from a (growing) discrepancy between the existing supply of and (developments in) demand for education; – problems in the form of undesirable developments in or outcomes of the system. 413 overheid en onderwijsbestel This study of government responsibility for the education system and educational con- text is based around four central research questions: – How did the government fulfil its responsibility for education in the past (up to 1990)? – How did the policy-building processes in relation to the system characteristics out- lined above develop in the period 1990-2010; which topics arose, and which (policy) actors were most closely involved in the various policy processes? – Why were the various topics highlighted in the context of the four system characteris- tics above placed on the agenda; what type of systemic problems arose, and what was the influence of the various (policy) actors? – To what extent and in what way has the government fulfilled its responsibility for the education system and educational context over the last 20 years? The description of the policy-building process in relation to the four system character- istics (case studies) is based solely on document research – not just policy documents, but also parliamentary papers, advisory reports from key advisory bodies, committee reports, research reports, publications by advocacy groups and media articles. The study covers a period of 20 years (1990-2010). 2. Developments in the education system The ‘Pacification of 1917’ brought an end to the school funding controversy Schoolstrijd( ) in the Netherlands. An amendment to the Dutch Constitution created financial equality between state and private education; prior to this time, the government had funded only publicly provided primary, secondary and university education. Creating financial equal- ity for state and private education required a detailed central legislative and regulatory regime, and a dedicated Ministry of Education was founded for this purpose in 1918. 2.1 Expansion of the education system (1920-1980) The expansion of the publicly funded education system began in 1920 with the pass- ing of the Primary Education Act (Lager onderwijswet). This opened the way for a marked expansion in (confessional) private primary education. Following the introduction of compulsory education in 1901, special schools were founded for children with physical and/or intellectual disabilities. A legislative framework was also introduced for vocational education in 1919, in the form of the Technical Education Act (Wet op het nijverheidsonderwijs); prior to this, voca- tional education had been funded through private initiatives or by industry. The years of reconstruction following the Second World War provided the context for a rapid expan- sion in the number of schools offering elementary, junior and senior vocational educa- tion, especially for technical occupations. The growth of the welfare state in the 1960s and 70s was also accompanied by a strong rise in the number of new vocational training programmes, with further differentiation being introduced in terms of level and disci- pline. Educational differentiation according to religious and ideological orientation also increased sharply between 1920 and 1980. 414 summary In 1980 the education system comprised 17,740 primary schools (8,050 nursery schools, 8,727 primary schools and 963 primary schools), 3,734 secondary schools and (full-time) programmes (1,511 providing junior general secondary (mavo), senior general second- ary (havo) and pre-university (vwo) education, 1,293 offering junior vocational education programmes, 577 teaching senior secondary vocational programmes and 353 providing higher professional education). At the start of the 1980s, tertiary education in the Neth- erlands was provided by the 21 universities. The financial equality between state and private education which was established fol- lowing the 1917 Pacification resulted in an education policy that was highly centralised and legalistic. Through the 1960s and 70s, education policy gradually changed from a distributive and allocative approach (distributive fairness) to one of construction and renewal. The publication of the Contours Report (Contourennota) in 1975 was the most important milestone during this period of development. 2.2 Restructuring of the education system and new administrative relations (1980 -2000) The 1980s saw the basis being laid for the present education system and educational context . The introduction of the Secondary Education Act (Wet op het voortgezet onderwijs) in the early 1980s established a legislative framework covering both general secondary education and junior, senior and higher vocational education. The education system was highly differentiated, and questions were increasingly being raised as to whether the differentiation and resultant selection had not gone too far. The first step on the path towards integration had already been presaged in the Contours Report, in the form of the merging of nursery and primary education. This became a reality with the introduc- tion of a new Primary Education Act (Wet op het basisonderwijs ) in 1985. Opinions were strongly divided on the issue of integrating the early years of the different secondary school types to create a common basic education programme. The debate about middle schools had led to a political stalemate, and the decision-making on a common pro- gramme ground to a halt for a long time. On the other hand, there was consensus on the proposal