The Education Council advises the Minister of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) to ensure that teaching practice is informed by wide-ranging research and education professionals’ expertise. The Council also advises to bring an end to the narrow focus on so-called proven effective methods and to no longer make them mandatory.
The Council warns of the risks of a narrow approach to educational quality. Focusing principally on proven effective methods suggests that education is a technical, goal-oriented process. In reality, education is always a question of striking a balance between and within internal, individual goal areas and the overarching objectives of education. The Council advises the education minister to facilitate a wide gamut of research, driven by a variety of research topics, using different research methods and approached from different scientific disciplines. The Council also recommends that the conditions be created to enable insights gained from research to be incorporated in teaching practice, and that lasting links between educational practice and research be encouraged.
The Council advocates scrapping the draft legislation that mandates schools to adopt an evidence-informed model. The proposal amounts to prescription of certain methods and thereby constrains the professional freedom of school teams and ignores the contextuality, complexity and normative aspects of educational practice.
Background: more explicit government focus on evidence-informed education
If teachers base their teaching on insights gained from research, that will strengthen their professionalism and improve the quality of their lessons. Acknowledging this, the government has for some time encouraged the use of research as a means of improving educational quality.
For the last twenty years or so, this has been done under the banner of evidence-based or evidence-informed education. The policy around using so-called proven effective methods in practice has become increasingly obligatory in recent years, with examples in the Netherlands such as the National Programme for Education (NPO), the Basic Skills Masterplan (Masterplan Basisvaardigheden) and the Bill on continuous learning processes and quality assurance systems (Wetsvoorstel Concretisering ononderbroken ontwikkelingsproces en stelsel van kwaliteitszorg). The Dutch parliament has also issued a number of motions in recent years advocating the use of scientifically based or proven methods in education, and called on the government to encourage the use of these methods, or to make their use compulsory.
The government focus on using proven effective approaches has implications for teaching practice and educational research. At the request of Parliament, the Education Council advises on the opportunities and risks of pushing for an evidence-informed approach in teaching practice, with a specific focus on primary and secondary education.
Advice: end the narrow focus and give school teams the scope to deploy a broadly informed approach
The Education Council advises the Minister of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) to aim for the adoption of an informed approach in teaching practice based on a wide range of research and the expertise of education professionals. The Council recommends discontinuing the narrow focus on using what is called proven effective approaches, and no longer making it mandatory to follow an evidence-informed approach.
The Council warns that this narrow focus and the imposed use of a limited number of methods carries a number of risks. The emphasis on impact research can put pressure on educational quality. It constrains the professional freedom of school teams and takes little account of the contextuality, complexity and normative aspects of educational practice.
The Minister bears system responsibility for the quality of education. It is legitimate for the Minister to seek instruments that will improve the quality of education and to focus on incorporating insights from research in teaching practice. Research findings can help school teams to make sound educational choices, develop their teaching and reflect on their own practice. However, the Council stresses that this will require a wide and varied range of research. Delivering good education requires teachers and professional school teams who are able to work in a way that is informed by a variety of different types of research.
Recommendation one: facilitate a wide range of research
The Education Council recommends that the government encourages a wide and varied range of research with a view to improving educational quality. That research should be wide-ranging in terms of issues studied, research methods and scientific approach. The availability and accessibility of this diverse research is necessary to enable education to be delivered in a well-informed way. Permanent links also need to be established to facilitate two-way traffic between research and practice.
Recommendation two: create the conditions to facilitate well-informed education practice
Teachers must be given the space to do their jobs in a well-informed way, i.e. informed by a wide range of different sources about the different options available to them, based on judgements about their own teaching practice. The necessary conditions for enabling this in a school are research literacy on the part of education professionals, a learning culture and a personnel policy that encourages teachers’ professional development. There must also be a structure in place which makes all this possible, with sufficient time, space, facilities and budget. School boards and principals are in a position to create these conditions; the Minister must ensure that they have the resources to do so.
The Education Council calls for continuation of the teacher scholarship (lerarenbeurs) and the PhD grant for teachers (promotiebeurs). These are valuable incentives for the professionalisation and research literacy of teachers. The Council also calls for the reintroduction of the Teacher Development Fund (LerarenOntwikkelFonds).
Recommendation three: strengthen lasting partnership between practice and research
The Education Council recommends strengthening the links between local, regional and national networks of schools and universities. Researchers and education professionals can develop education and carry out research in co-creation, drawing on each other’s expertise.
It is key that research and practice feed each other. The Education Council sees a vital role here for the National Education Institute (NKO) and Ontwikkelkracht.
Recommendation four: end the legal compulsion to employ an evidence-informed approach
The Education Council believes that the Bill on continuous learning processes and quality assurance systems (Wetsvoorstel Concretisering ononderbroken ontwikkelingsproces en stelsel van kwaliteitszorg) carries too big a risk of a narrow, mandatory focus on using so-called proven effective approaches in education. The Council recommends that this bill be withdrawn, believing that it takes too little account of the limits of impact research and the risks of promoting its use in practice.