Parents worried about corona effects on education.

Parents worried about corona effects on education.

Secondary schools have had to improvise a lot since the outbreak of the coronavirus. The way students receive lessons differs from school to school. Parents worry about the impact of corona on education. This appears from the survey we did among parents in the Landelijk Ouderpanel.

Differences within education during corona times

From the signals and questions from parents, Ouders & Onderwijs already noticed that there are big differences when secondary schools reopened. The recent results of the survey from the Landelijk Ouderpanel confirm this picture.
Every secondary school looked at its own possibilities and made choices within the limits of the corona measures. “But this created a somewhat chaotic situation: it is different everywhere. Some parents with children in different secondary schools also see big differences in how everything was handled,” says director Lobke Vlaming in the report from Nieuwsuur Wednesday evening.
There are also big differences in taking tests. Students can often take their tests digitally (36%), but some schools have students take tests at school (14%). Sometimes students must take tests, but the results do not count for promotion or grade retention (14%). About a third of the schools eased the rules on promotion and grade retention, and for moving on it is somewhat lower: 10%. At a small part of the schools (10%) parents and students got a bigger voice in promotion.

Limited lesson offer

Although secondary education is fully open again, most students go to school only a few hours a week. And often only for a mentor lesson (44%) or to take a test (38%). More and more parents find this a very limited form of education. ‘It is too little, messy and unclear’, parents say.

Quality of education decreases

Parents also say that because of limited lessons, the quality of education goes down. “We asked parents: how satisfied were you before with the education and how is it now? Then we see it has dropped a lot,” says Vlaming. “That is not very strange because everything must be remote and it changed suddenly. Parents see a drop in quality because of this.”

Learning delay due to corona

Almost half of the parents think their child has a learning delay because of the corona crisis, ranging from ‘very much’ (10%) to ‘a little’ (36%). Parents mainly wonder how schools will fix this. So far, they hear almost nothing from school about this. Also not about what happens after summer.

Back to school

More than half of the parents surveyed want their child to get as much and as fast as possible education at school. Meanwhile, a petition for full reopening of secondary schools has been signed by thousands of parents. A smaller part of the parents (18%) prefer education to be given remotely.

What next?

The cabinet will come next week with new information about how secondary schools can continue after the summer holiday. As soon as more is known about this, we will add it in our FAQ. Do you also want to share your opinion about education for your child? Then make your voice heard and sign up for the Landelijk Ouderpanel!