In brief: Poverty and education
Young people in the Netherlands growing up in poverty face barriers in accessing secondary education (vo) and secondary vocational education (mbo). It is the task of government, schools and local authorities to guarantee that young people from poor households are able to participate fully in education.
The Dutch Education Council calls on the Minister of Education to improve the access to secondary education and secondary vocational education for young people growing up in poverty. School costs in these education sectors are high, and the Council advises the government and schools to remove these financial barriers. Every person in the Netherlands who is of compulsory school age or required to obtain a basic qualification must be able to access free education. Improvements are also needed in the education and support offered to young people growing up in poverty. Schools cannot do this on their own; the Council calls on local authorities to shoulder their responsibility.
Background: youth poverty makes demands on schools
There are at least 115,000 minors living in poverty in the Netherlands (2023 figures). They encounter both material and non-material barriers impeding their participation in education.
Dutch government policy aimed at combating child poverty has been in place for almost ten years. Among other things, this policy imposes demands on schools, making them responsible for offering good-quality, accessible education to all their pupils. However, they are not responsible for combating poverty or other aspects of the anti-poverty policy; policy to combat poverty at local level is in the first place a responsibility of local authorities.
The public debate on poverty, as well as the anti-poverty policy, rightly focus much attention on combating poverty among primary school pupils. But poverty does not cease after pupils leave primary school. At the request of the Dutch House of Representatives, the Council therefore advises on what is needed to ensure that young people growing up in poverty are able to participate to the full in general and vocational secondary education. What role do schools play in this context, and is there also a role for other actors?
Advice: Improve accessibility of secondary education and secondary vocational education for young people growing up in poverty
Young people growing up in poverty encounter obstacles in accessing secondary education and secondary vocational education. These include financial barriers, with parents and pupils being confronted with high school costs, especially in secondary vocational education. Additionally, secondary schools with a high proportion of pupils from poor households are more affected by teacher shortages and dwindling resources, jeopardising educational quality and the learning environment. On top of this, the support needs of pupils from poor households are not always acknowledged. These obstacles result in lower school success rates for children from a poor background, and causes their educational career to follow a different path from other pupils.
The Council therefore advises the government, schools and local authorities to improve access to general and vocational secondary schools for young people growing up in poverty.
Recommendation 1: Guarantee free access to education up to the basic qualification
Everyone should have free access to publicly funded education. That means that all young people in the Netherlands who are of compulsory school age or are required to obtain a basic qualification must have free access to education, regardless of the route they follow towards achieving the basic qualification.
The Education Council recommends that the government end the disparity in school costs between secondary education and secondary vocational education for students who are of compulsory school age and who are required to obtain a basic qualification. Those costs are high, for example the need to buy a laptop, pay for excursions and special clothing for particular subjects or programmes. The school costs for secondary vocational education are even higher than for secondary education; for example, textbooks are free at secondary schools, whereas at secondary vocational schools this is only the case for language, mathematics and citizenship courses. Vocational students also face high costs for the materials they need for their studies. As a result, some areas of education are beyond the reach for pupils (from households) with insufficient financial means.
The Council also recommends that school boards and heads take a different approach to the voluntary parental contribution. This must be genuinely voluntary, limited and anonymous, something that is by no means always the case at present. The contribution must be a single sum, which includes everything, so that pupils and their parents are not confronted with unexpected extras and are not constantly forced to say that they are unable or unwilling to pay the contribution.
Recommendation 2: Monitor the quality of education and remove obstacles to participation
The Council stresses the need for schools and programme leaders to maintain the quality and educational content at their schools. On average, pupils from poor households are less often taught by appropriately qualified teachers, because their schools are more impacted by teacher shortages. The Council reiterates its earlier call to school boards to ensure a fair distribution of teachers.
The Council also recommends that the support offered to pupils from a poor background be strengthened. Many teachers have difficulty in identifying pupils from poor households, so that their need for educational and other support is by no means always recognised. School teams, including teachers and heads, therefore need to develop a group awareness and a system of protocols to help them recognise and accommodate pupils growing up in poverty.
Schools and programme leaders cannot do this alone, especially if they are also faced with a shortage of teachers or school heads; they need help from the government, local authorities and local partners with this. The Council calls for a strengthening of the educational opportunities budget for secondary schools and the introduction of a comparable budget for secondary vocational education.
Recommendation 3: Ensure that local authorities take responsibility
Local authorities are responsible for efforts to combat poverty at local level. In principle, it is their task to coordinate or initiate initiatives aimed at supporting children living in poverty. This also applies for activities at the interface of education, the social sphere and anti-poverty policy. There is some variation in the degree to which local authorities do this, and also in the extent to which general and vocational secondary schools are involved in local consultations. That leads to undesirable discrepancies.
The Council calls on local authorities to take up their responsibility here. They must support and take the pressure off schools and teachers. The needs and capacities of schools should be the guiding principle here: local authorities must not ask too much of schools. It is vital that secondary and secondary vocational schools are more involved in consultative initiatives such as the local or regional education agenda and local equal opportunities alliances.