Communication about voluntary parent contribution insufficient.

Communication about voluntary parent contribution insufficient.

Only a quarter of the school guides in secondary education clearly say that the parent contribution is voluntary. That is the conclusion of the Education Inspectorate.

Insufficient communication in school guide

The Education Inspectorate has researched the law around the voluntary parent contribution since 2021. Three quarters of the school guides do not or only partially say that the parent contribution is voluntary.

The main conclusions from the report are:

• 77% of the school guides do not meet the law and rules about the parent contribution.
• 71% of the school guides do not make clear that students cannot be excluded from participation if (part of) the parent contribution is unpaid.
• Half of the school guides do not offer an alternative if (for example) a device must be bought to follow education.
• Often it is not clear (from public information) what costs parents should expect.
• In 77% of the school guides it is not clear what the contribution is for, or there is a contribution asked for costs that parents can expect to be paid from normal national funding (for example a media library).

All children must be able to join in

People in education say the new law makes them communicate more strictly to still earn enough money. Everyone agrees that ‘all children must be able to join all parts of their school’s offer’. The Inspectorate says it wants to tighten its supervision.