Increases in school size, deregulation and changed funding streams have raised the importance of competent internal supervision in the education system. Institutions need to improve the way supervision of their governing body is organised if they are to keep the trust of stakeholders. This will need a change in education legislation.
6 December 2004
Schools are getting bigger. This means not only that their funding increases, but that their social importance also increases. The government is keen to increase the autonomy of schools in regard to how they organise the education and how they deal with budgeting. As a consequence, it is increasingly difficult for outsiders to keep track of what schools are doing. Schools therefore need to account better for what they do through a system of more stringent internal oversight.
Establish statutory parameters for vocational, adult and higher education
In vocational and adult education (BVE) and in higher education, internal oversight is often the responsibility of a supervisory board tasked with monitoring the quality of governance. It is not always clear how supervisory boards can be called to account. The Education Council therefore calls for the powers of supervisory boards to be anchored in law, as has already been done in the business community for supervisory directors. We also call for the establishment of a national association of oversight bodies in order to create an expert group in which expertise can be shared. At the time of writing, internal oversight in the semi-public sector is still in its infancy.
Introduce a separation of responsibilities in primary and secondary education
Many primary and secondary schools do not have a separate supervisory body. In some cases, governing bodies are responsible for supervising themselves. The Education Council believes this is an undesirable situation. We would like to see schools make more active use of the existing opportunities for internal oversight. Denominational or ideology-based schools founded as non-profit corporations (stichtingen), for example, could set out in their articles of association how the governance and oversight responsibilities are divided among the various governors, or they could elect to have a separate supervisory board. In publicly funded schools or schools established as associations, the supervision function could be vested in the assembly of the local authority or the general assembly of members, respectively. In fact, this function could be given more shape by establishing a specific oversight committee.