Long travel time for many students at special education.

Long travel time for many students at special education.

Students at special education often spend a lot of time getting to school. A travel time longer than an hour is not unusual. 'Many children already had a full day when they arrive at school,' said our director Lobke Vlaming in the Radio-1 news on Monday morning.

‘Some children have to sit in the taxi bus for too long. Sometimes two hours a day, five days a week. These children already need extra care or support and this is of course far too long,’ said Lobke Vlaming.

Inclusive education

Ouders & Onderwijs received hundreds of responses from parents after a call about this. The Ministry of OCW says it wants to offer as much inclusive education as possible within 15 years. But we would like to see a change soon for children who have long travel times. One option could be to lower the norm. Transportation is arranged by the municipality and currently the maximum travel time for one way is 90 minutes, unless it is not possible to stay within this time because of distance. It may be more realistic to reduce this without restrictions to 45 minutes or less. Or to make Tailored Education closer. That would be truly inclusive!

Focus point

This is an important focus point and Ouders & Onderwijs will keep working hard for it. Hopefully politics will find ways to act on this soon.

Listen and watch again

Listen to the Radio-1 news broadcast again.

Read about the attention for this from the NOS Jeugdjournaal. Watch the item again in the morning bulletin (from 4’17 to 6’15 minutes). Watch the item again in the evening bulletin.

Watch the item from Hart van Nederland (27 September) again.