Education, a quarter for your thoughts, Slob!

Een kwartje voor je gedachten, Slob!

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Hans

@hans1671102377 · 22 Aug 2020

Education, a quarter for your thoughts, Slob!

Who is born for a dime will never become a quarter (=you can never rise above the position in which you were born. Born poor, will remain poor).

A quarter for your thoughts, Slob!
How our education is going, you can hear it on the radio. Many providers of better or supportive education are active in advertising blocks before and after the news. Recently I have been hearing commercials of 'Grip op tekst' and 'Error-free match', but also from Luzac, European and international schools, which promise better and smaller teaching than regular education can offer. A sign on the wall. Anyone who understands the sign will understand that the educational building is rotten and that smart entrepreneurs are closing the gaps. Does Education Secretary Arie Slob listen to the radio? And if so, does he experience slight discomfort when he hears that there are plenty of private parties offering better education? Is this inconvenience already stronger in the knowledge that forty percent of primary school pupils do not meet the target level for language and fifty-three percent for arithmetic, in the outflow to secondary education? So they have to repair the damage there? Is his itch uncontrollable at the news earlier this year that a quarter of the Dutch fifteen-year-olds low literate is? Which means they can't understand a letter from the government or a lease and can't recognize an e-mail from a Nigerian con man? Those who cannot read critically are more susceptible to wanderers and conspiracy theories, to unprovable assumptions about 5G and Bill Gates and subcutaneous microchips. Although such quatsch is not reserved for the lower educated, lack of language skills is the norm in conspiracy sensitive online communities.

No news from the Education Minister in the meantime. What does he do, what does he think? Is he working in the deepest secret on a delta plan to save education? A quarter for your thoughts, Slob!

Many schools that show off good results owe them to parents who buy extra education for their children from tutoring and homework institutes. Sometimes such institutes even rent premises in the school itself — which should be the honor of every teacher and school director. Teachers now tell us that children who receive extra education disrupt regular classes because they already master the substance; they prefer to lose them rather than rich.

A more serious consequence is that the private addition to the public offer encourages social division and deepens the gap between the disadvantaged and the deprived. Education should facilitate emancipation and increase social mobility, but development points the other way.

Buying up education is a sign of system weakness, which puts everyone at a disadvantage: the rich in their wallets and the poor in their chances. A low-literate and low-graded subclass disadvantage in particular the BV Netherlands. That should be of interest to the worshippers of the neoliberal Baäls Service. But no. The silence hurts your ears. The minister points out the responsibility of the schools, but the schools have structurally insufficient teachers and resources and point back to the minister — a closed system. Even though the Cabinet claims that “the education sector is getting the most in this cabinet period”, the Education Council reaches other conclusions. For the period up to 2018, the Council wrote: “If we look at the expenditure per participant as calculated by CBS, we do not see an increase in national contributions per pupil for primary and secondary education and does not appear to be an overall increase in government spending.” Despite Rutte III's emergency repairs, the Netherlands has less and less left for education: the trend remains negative.

Our reform-liberated education minister is probably well acquainted with the story of Daniel, who could read the sign on the wall of King Belshazzar, telling the monarch that he was found weighted and too light. Nothing prevents him from engaging in that on himself.

Tommy Wieringa writes a column at this place every week.

#onderwijs

Comments (3)
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Soberana

4 years ago

Weer een geweldig artikel van de onvolprezen Tommy Wieringa! Deze situatie is niet nieuw, maar is blijkbaar van kwaad tot erger... Show moreWeer een geweldig artikel van de onvolprezen Tommy Wieringa! Deze situatie is niet nieuw, maar is blijkbaar van kwaad tot erger vervallen:
Mijn dochter heeft ca 12 jaar geleden onbezoldigd een aantal geschiedenislessen gegeven aan het lyceum dat haar kinderen bezochten: het geschiedenisonderwijs was nl erbarmelijk. Ze bracht haar eigen lesmateriaal mee.
Mijn oudste kleinzoon haalde zijn eindexamen in 2010 met behulp van een peperduur (en daarom door grootouders betaald) huiswerkinstituut.
Het is dat mijn kleinzoons van huis uit drietalig zijn opgevoed en dus naast Nederlands, ook Engels en Duits als native-speakers beheersen en extra (buitenschoolse) lessen Frans kregen, anders zou ook hun talenkennis ondermaats zijn.
Maar: het kan altijd nog erger:
Hier op Curacao is vandaag de dag alleen het Vespucci-college op Nederlands niveau. Schoolgeld per maand: ca 2000 Ang. = anderhalf x het plaatselijke minimumloon. Als je 2 schoolgaande kinderen hebt, zou je zomaar het gehele salaris van een leerkracht moeten neertellen. Niet voor 'gewone' mensen dus...
Saillant detail: behalve de kinderen van grootverdieners zitten daar ook de kinderen van de hier gelegerde militairen uit NL. Uiteraard kan het schoolgeld niet uit het soldij worden bekostigd. Dus Defensie betaalt: m.a.w. de Nederlandse belastingbetaler= jij, mijn kinderen en kleinkinderen en andere hardwerkende Nederlanders.