The Dutch Educational System & Why I Hate it // Dutch Person Explaining the Dutch Education System
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- #netherlands #education #system
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Hi,
This is the education system I grew up with and I don't like it. Having experienced other educational systems in both the UK and US allowed me to reflect back on how weird and compartmentalising the Dutch system actually is. Don't get me wrong, I also think that we're doing things right in the Pre-K and Elementary school department, but as soon as we hit the final year of elementary school the system gets overcomplicated which impacts society as a whole.
This video was recorded in May (13-05-2022 & 14-05-2022). Stay tuned for more Oxford content all the following weeks! Please don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe.
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00:00 Intro
01:02 Overview entire system
01:37 Pre-K
02:14 Elementary
03:30 Speciaal Onderwijs
04:00 High School overview
04:16 CITO test
06:04 choosing a high school
06:58 Burgklas/Bridge year
08:01 VWO
09:03 Profiel/Profile subject choices
09:35 Grading Culture
10:08 University admissions (WO)
11:18 HAVO
12:09 HBO admissions
12:50 VMBO overview
13:27 Praktijk Onderwijs
13:46 VMBO-B & MBO 2
14:10 VMBO-K & MBO 3
14:27 VMBO-T, VMBO-G, & MBO 4
15:01 MBO 1
15:15 moving up between levels
17:18 University overview
17:45 WO research University
21:50 HBO University of Applied Sciences
22:46 my personal pros
23:38 my personal cons
Links to Studiekeuze123, the percentage of students who graduation within x years, you can find under "Tijdens de Opleiding":
Please note that these numbers are from May 2022
WO
37% in 4 years - French Language and Culture - University of Amsterdam
www.studiekeuze123.nl/opleidi...
47% in 4 years - Law - University of Amsterdam
www.studiekeuze123.nl/opleidi...
72% in 4 years - Medicine - University of Leiden
www.studiekeuze123.nl/opleidi...
HBO
24% in 5 years - High School French Teacher - Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
www.studiekeuze123.nl/opleidi...
24% in 5 years - HBO Law - Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
www.studiekeuze123.nl/opleidi...
36% in 5 years - Biological and Medical Research - Utrecht University of Applied Sciences
www.studiekeuze123.nl/opleidi...
Little bit about myself:
I'm 25 years old and I'm originally from Amsterdam, I currently live in London. At the University of Oxford, I read for the Mst in Modern Languages. I've graduated from the University of Amsterdam where I studied the BA in French Literature and Culture. Would I recommend the University of Amsterdam - No - Would I recommend the University of Oxford - Yes, 100%.
Music that I do not own:
Intro and outro music:
Palmtrees by The Brothers Records
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CITO UPDATE - from school year 23-24 onwards Cito has been replaced by a ‘doorstroomtoets’.
The essence of the test still is the same. It’s a standardised test done by final year elementary pupils to be placed in one of the levels of high school.
The major change is that besides the government there are now other independent organisations that are able to provide these ‘Cito tests’. As far as I understand it, they have some shared questions which they use to calibrate the result. The elementary school decides which test they will offer their pupils.
The second change is that the test will not be taken on the same day. There will be a 3 week window during which the schools are able to decide when they allow their students to take the test. This window is in January/February.
If anything changes and/or if I learn more about this change, I will update this post.
Wow, I have browsed through a lot of resources on the internet to really understand the Dutch higher education system because it feels very complicated and intimidating. My daughter in a couple of years will need to make a choice and this video is by far the clearest explanation. I do have to say that watching the video just once I still understood maybe 70% of it, that is how complicated it is. Will have to watch it again :) And this is not a remark to the video itself because you have done an awesome job. Thank you very much for sharing this, I highly appreciate you taking the time to explain this.
I am spreading this video around, I know a lot of non Dutch parents who would value this knowledge!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it! It is a very complicated system unfortunately.
I went to university when I was 37. I found, that the same words have a different use, and a different meaning for several social groups.
When I got the test when I was 12, advice was; go to work or max tradeschool.
My parents did not trust it, sent me to a private institute where I was tested 5 days.
Suddenly I was more than suitable for gymnasium; what was then the highest level.
From many kids future chances were ruined by these tests.
The worst part, which is probably not exclusive to the Netherlands, is the corrupt teachers who give marks on a scale of “I like you” or “I don’t”
There was a man, who started to work at a sawing mill, when he was 11 years old.
When he was 31, he was married, two kids, and he lost his job.
He went to study via an colloqium doctum.
He finished TWO studies in 3,5 years.
How? Simple; he concidered studying as working, so he made 8 hrs per workingday.......
Studying (HBO--WO) is in NL a matter of social background.
One of the reasons that so few students are from workers background, is that they do not have an idea how daily life of student looks like.
Then: interest for studying comes mainly from home situation and from school.
The schools (elementery schools) do absolutely nothing possitive.
Then there is a matter of language use, which is different between several classes.
Also teachers at universities despice ppl from "the working floor" allthough they are the ones paying their too high salaries.
The universities must be reformed ugently.
First of all: there must be timeclocks, bio controled with irish scans for personal.
Teachers must give colleges at least 30 hrs per week.
Not enough space available? In evening or night or weekend the buildings are still there.
The nonsence faculties must be closed.
The teachers "zonder leerstoel"must be fired.
Universities must actively make sure that more students from working class get registrated.
If not, with fines for the universities.
Maximum duration study: 4 years
Dutch titles back; USA titles do not belong in NL
Study financing: the old system; but then: via the bruto income of parents.
What do you think about the cost of tuition in the USA?
Just FYI - CITO is currently spread out over 2 days (some schools might have 3 test days, this means that they have the non-mandatory part as well as the 2 mandatory parts.) Still this doesn’t take away from the fact that the CITO test is a snapshot in time and not something that measured performance over time. All 3 separate parts take about 45 to 60 minutes to complete.
Thanks giiirl, it's awesome
Thank you!
There are quite a few courses that have limit on the number of students they will take, both within WO and HBO. And for those, grades can be a part of the selection process (next to motivation and tests). So to maximize your chances, it is still a good idea to work hard in high school.
You are correct that there are a handful of Numerus Fixus (selective) courses at both HBO and WO level, the difference with medicine however is that 1. these course can vary year to year, 2. they are not as oversubscribed as medicine, the "acceptance rate" is much higher as such, 3. these courses tend not to be "exclusively selective", meaning that 'course x' can be selective at 3 out of the 6 HBO/WO institutions where it gets offered. In popular years it might go up to 4 out of 6 (or 6 out of 6 in super popular years) but in unpopular years it might go down to 2 out of 6, this while medicine is always selective as it is hugely oversubscribed and not as much dependant on waves of popularity. Every single university that offers medicine has a selection procedure in place, while you might be able to omit the selection for 'course x' by choosing a different institution, making medicine the only overall selective one. You'll see that often places like Amsterdam deal with a higher volume of numerus fixus solely based on the fact that it is the capital and therefore, attracts more students.
Still, final selections for these numerus fixus courses is very rarely solely based on marks often other elements are deemed more important, such as the tests and motivational letters as you mentioned. Numerus Fixus comes in all different shapes and sizes as the institution (and therefore, not the government) is able to decide what it entails, resulting in a situation where it can be easier to gain entry at one institution over the other.
I fully agree with you that doing your best in high school is important no matter what, it's just a shame that the systems forces most students to be average in their cohort.
There's a small addition: If you have a similar enough HBO bachelor's you can move on to a WO master's via the pre-master route! but it is a complicated mess of a system that can create some very unfair situations
Thank you for the side note!
Little correction about the "you never have to score high in VWO, diploma is always good enough" bit, this is not always the case. I'm planning on getting into university college Twente/technology & liberal arts and sciences, and to get in i need a 7,5 for maths and a 7,5 physics or chemistry to get in. I've seen this with a couple more 'honours' study's and i think some university's accept students based on grading if there's limited spots.
Another correction about the you have to have a foreign language and if you can't you have to do havo: I know at least 3 people in my year that don't have a foreign language on VWO. One of them is dyslexic, but the other two aren't. They had to speak to the decan about it but if you really want to you can drop all languages except Dutch and English, especially if you're dyslexic.
I agree with you that it should be easier to move up through the system, but I do think that the separating of school is not necessarily a bad thing. I for one am very happy I got to do something my level, instead of something that is severely under it.
I actually don't think a lot of people moving down is such a bad thing because we have a shortage of more practical educated people so more people moving 'down' can get more people there. (we kinda have a shortage of people in general but yeah)
Thank you for your corrections, I agree with you that there are exceptions where high(er) marks are needed, however, these tend to be exceptions. If you look at the vast majority of state university degrees at WO level, the only entry requirements tend to be a VWO diploma and the corresponding subject as part of your curriculum. This is a huge difference between the Dutch educational system and, for example, IB, the USA, and the UK, where they are much more reliant on marks/grades to make the difference, not the diploma or level you obtain at the end of high school.
I'm happy to hear that your school is taken care of its pupils who struggle with languages through dyslexia. Despite dyslexia not being the only reason why pupils would struggle with language, and English being a foreign language from a Dutch perspective (or Dutch being a foreign language from an expat perspective), I did not state anywhere in this video, that if cannot do a foreign language, you need to do HAVO. The point I was making was again, partly a comparison to other, more well known educational systems. In the Netherlands, you are not able to take subjects at different levels of difficulty as students are already sorted into different levels, whereas in IB there are options to take higher level maths versus standard level maths, for example. Or in the USA where you are able to opt in for AP classes, if your school offers them. Or in the UK where the students who are sitting A-levels are (generally) only sitting 3 subjects at the end of their schooling, not 8. And those 3 they can pick freely, only restriction is what the school offers and what the student plans to study in uni thereafter.
As you can see, other school systems give students the option to cater to their level of eduction on a subject basis. For a Dutch student however, as they are already sorted in their level, they don't have that same freedom, all VWO subjects come at VWO level, all HAVO subjects come at HAVO level. As a HAVO student you cannot take French at VWO level and science at VMBO level. This means that it is more difficult for a student who is very gifted at for example maths but not at languages to obtain the VWO diploma as languages like Dutch, English, and a foreign language (apparently not the extra one in all cases) are mandatory whereas in the UK they would be able to move after GCSEs to 3 subjects of their choice. The Dutch system is way much more catered to all-rounders whereas the UK caters to the specialist. Obviously, this is not an issue for all students, but it's worth flagging, as again it is a huge difference from other well known school systems.
I agree with you that moving down is not a bad thing, when it is the right thing for the student. However, after having a short stint of being a high school teacher I found out that some students are being moved down for the sake of the school's performance results and not necessarily because it was the best option for the student. I'm not implying that all schools do this, but it does occur.
I am happy to hear that you are happy where you're at, that's the most important thing. All school systems are different, as you might have noticed I'm not a fan a of the Dutch one, but I have yet to find the perfect one too. There's pros and cons to all and some work better for one type of students vs another.
I have a question, I am now in mbo level 2, but I dont want to continue to mbo 4 ...I want to have some secondary education in my studies like havo. Can I do this education as a mature student? .......an can u tell me what's the equivalence in the the Nederlands an the UK G.C.E diploma example o levels an A levels
you can do the extra education on HAVO or VWO level as a mature student! We have something called VAVO for that. which is ment exactly for this kind of scenario. it's usually taught by an MBO institution but it gets you the exact same high school diploma
We are from America and have three kids ages 5, 3 and 1. We loved it over there, but have concerns with them integrating and being successful there. Would you warn against moving with kids to the Netherlands because of the education system?
Hi! I wouldn’t say that the quality of education is poor in the Netherlands, on the contrary, I think the quality, especially in elementary school is great. However, when it gets to high school I believe it greatly depends upon the child as well as whether or not the plan is to stay in Netherlands or venture out internationally. For the more international outlook I would consider international school but if that’s not a priority it depends on the child and what’s best for them. Despite my dislike of the education system for high school, the quality is still really good for free state schooling. Sorry for not giving a more straight forward answer but there are too many variables involved. I hope this helped either way.
@@Steffie228G Thank you very much!
Can a WO bachelor qualify a person to do a masters in the UK?
Hi Hope, yes definitely, that’s the route that I took. 😊
I feel like you’re leaving out a huge part of why the education system is the way it is. Higher education is highly subsidized in the Nederlands unlike other parts of the world. So they must subsidize those students that show promise early on. I agree that it can suck for late bloomers or those who discover their calling later in life but it just means they will have to work harder later in life to catch up so to speak if they do want to pursue higher education. I grew up in Canada and the system is no where as complicated as this one but I also think many people get left behind or pushed through the system and suffer after school because they didn’t reap the full benefit of a proper education, that could have catered to their needs better. As for taking longer to finish a 3 or 4 year degree this also makes sense to me because most professionals in North America will need another 4 year graduate degree after an undergraduate degree to get licensed or sit exams in their profession so in total they spend 8 years after high school in higher education. Usually starting working professionally around 26~30 old.
Hi thank you for your reaction.
I fully agree with you that it is great that the Netherlands has subsidised education, however, having “free” and/or “government funded education” is not an excuse for the Dutch system.
There are several other European countries where ‘state’ education is of good quality and funded by the government but the system is not nearly as complicated what we have or the system is more lenient (eg Belgium, Finland).
Nor is it the case that Dutch students who show more promise enjoy more subsidisation or better quality education than those in other levels. Those in higher levels might be in education for longer but the government is not specifically aiming to support those who show promise more. I would even go as far that there’s a lack of support for those who show promise.
As much as I’m happy the Netherlands has government funded education, so do a lot of other countries within Europe. All with their own issues of course. Unfortunately, for a lot of students one system might work wonders while the next leaves them hanging.
To your point of spending more time to finish a university degree, it’s not that dutch students will acquire more degrees in this longer timeframe. (This is a generalisation:) dutch students tend to acquire a 3-year bachelors degree (180 European Credits/90 American credit hours) in 4-6 years. They’ll be around the age of 23/26 when done. If they then decide to pursue a licensed profession in, for example, the medical field they’ll need to add on a 3 years master’s, which most students do not complete in 3 years either, so students will be around the age of 28/29 when they are able to enter the workforce as a GP or equivalent. If they plan on specialising within the field (eg surgeon, anaesthesiologist) they’re looking at even more years in education.
I actually don't find it weird that
I get where you’re coming from, however my issue is the international aspect of it all, not the way it is perceived in the Netherlands. (Just as a side note - in my experience - uni in the Netherlands was way easier than in the UK and the USA (UK being by far the toughest out of the three) but this issue doesn’t have to do with academic rigour). The problem for me, was not so much the normalisation within the Netherlands, but the denial from the Dutch universities internationally.
By claiming, internationally, that your degrees take 3 years and you fit the international norm in that sense, while at the same time the majority does not graduate within those 3 years. Which makes it really difficult for students to apply to master’s degrees or jobs abroad, as these foreign universities and companies see it plastered everywhere that it takes 3 years to graduate, yet you as an applicant completed it in 5 (just an example). From an international perspective, this means, you struggled in university, not that you lived your normalised life in the Netherlands.
I’m not saying that everyone should finish their degree in the Netherlands, within 3 years, as within the Netherlands itself, it doesn’t matter as much. The issue is when you go abroad and the lack of explanation offered by Dutch universities and Nuffic.
I really tried to complete my degree in 3 years as I wanted to go abroad and I didn’t want to have to “explain my way out”. The result was that I was met with a lot of pushback from my university, from only offering me overlapping modules and exams to failing to submit marks on time preventing me from enrolling in mandatory modules. While I was truly on top of chasing everyone to make sure that I didn’t run into these issues.
I later spoke to a professor from a different Dutch uni who explained to me that keeping students in uni for longer makes the university/department within the uni more money, which is likely why I was met with so much pushback, especially since I studied a dying subject.
I’m studying at an HBO right now and the quality of teaching is just terrible. A lot of teachers just talk, they don’t teach. There is almost no support for students
I'm so sorry to hear this, but you're likely not going to be surprised if I tell you that my WO uni experience in NL was very similar. I feel like quality of eduction in HBO and WO is very course dependent unfortunately.
@@Steffie228G wow really? I was thinking of trying to take the CCVX exams to get into a WO. Do you think it’s not worth it?
@@Relesy I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it wouldn’t be worth it, despite the quality of education having a WO diploma is still valuable. I would recommend doing your research to figure out which uni provides the highest quality of education in your chosen course by talking to enrolled students and studiekeuze123.
"Bijzonder onderwijs"should be canceled. Education must be free from religion; besides, canceling would save a lot of tax money.
After elementery school should be a general school, say with 8 years; every year an examination.
Per year gradual more difficult.
Then automatically: those who can do the ful 8 years, are equal to VWO.
Then all steps are in one school; which would save a lot of costs and higher quality.
The CITO test is no good. First of all: the interpretation is a motive for critics; but also: it is set in language use of middle class.
Result: many working class kids are "judged" below their capebilities.
As a matter of fact: nothing changed the last 70 years: the most important question: what is the profession of your father.
Proof of that is simple: look at population WO and HBO: in 1940 6% came from the working class; in 1980 even less.
If that would be set by IQ, it would be around 70%.
In the seventies the schooling for teachers was made easier; women were suposed to go and teach. Now teaching is a women affair (on elemetry schools)
Many cannot spell, calculate.
That--plus many children who do not speak good enough Dutch: disaster
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However, the USA system is worse; try to fire a teacher....
It is aimed at 70% of pupils to go as unschooled into industry; the 1945 ideas....