Education free? Or could you pay for the test paper.

Education free? Or could you pay for the test paper.

Education in the Netherlands is free for parents. All children can go to primary school and secondary education for free. Schools get their money from the government. Right?

All parents who have one or more children at school know this is only partly true. Yes, going to school is basically free, but that does not mean parents have no school costs. Some years, quite high bills come from school. Not to mention the stacks of notebooks, pens, cover paper and calculators that parents are expected to buy for their child. It usually starts limited at primary school with an annual voluntary parent contribution for school trips and the Sinterklaas party. A few tens of euros per year and (hopefully) not compulsory.

Secondary education

This changes a lot when a child goes to secondary education. Then parents really have to dig deep. For example, for foreign trips, sports activities and museum visits. But also more often for all kinds of ‘additional costs’, such as copy costs, general (?) costs, costs for ‘career orientation’, ‘exam costs’, costs for bilingual education and sometimes even for test paper. All those tens of euros add up to a large amount. Many parents spend hundreds of euros each year on these more-or-less voluntary contributions.

But that is not all. Schools usually expect children to have a good laptop to follow education. Bam, another 500 to 1000 euros gone. Also atlases, dictionaries, gym clothes, various materials and a graphic calculator. Cash register!

The parent’s wallet should not play a role in the choice children make for a secondary school. The reality, however, is very different. Especially for parents with a low income. They carefully check the websites and school guides of schools to see how much money they will spend at that school. They are forced to let the choice for a school depend on that. We call that selection before the gate at Ouders & Onderwijs.

Market forces

This way, market forces slowly creep more into education. Schools make good use of the large grey area between what they should pay themselves to offer good quality education and what they could ask parents. Parents as an extra income source, very handy. Especially if you ‘recruit’ wealthy parents to your school. This creates inequality of opportunity, something many politicians talk a lot about nowadays.

My advice to these politicians is: do something about school costs for parents and make sure school funding is enough. This way we really create equal opportunities. Schools also have a responsibility here: just because something is allowed does not mean it is desirable. Make a budget focused on the core task of a school: to provide good quality education to all children. Keep costs for parents under control and provide a safety net for parents who cannot pay the necessary additional costs. So these parents do not skip your school because of their wallet. Because that is not what education is meant for.

Parents have many questions about school costs and the voluntary parent contribution. That is why we start a campaign with handy information, the rules, stories from parents and blogs. Have your say and join our research on school costs.