Teachers and Teaching in the Netherlands
Over the past two weeks or so, I've had the opportunity to meet and talk with some colleagues who work in teacher education in the Netherlands. I travelled to Leiden University for several visits to talk to professors at ICLON, which is the Institte for teacher training at, primarily, the master's level at Leiden (see Gallery 3 for some campus pictures). I had been researching information about the teaching profession in the Netherlands wanted to hear from those involved in teacher preparation about the ins and outs of the process.
One of my primary motivations for selecting the Netherlands as one of the places I wanted to focus on was their PISA (Programme for Student Assessment) scores. For those unfamiliar with PISA, it is an internationally-benchmarked test given to 15 year old students across the globe. It's organized and supervised by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)-- which I am visiting in April at their Paris headquarters--and is, increasingly becoming among the most influential of education metrics in the world. For the 2012 test, about 510,000 fifteen year olds from about 65 countries (or economies as the OCED describes it) took the test.
If you're not familiar with the test, I'm sure you might be familiar with the headlines it generates, the latest being those that occurred in 2013 reporting 2012 PISA results. It's the test that governments around the world use to demonstrate that students in their country are losing ground in the global competitveness arena--the US probably first among these. It's the test that students in Asia routinely excel in with most EU countries--and the US--trailing (sometimes far) behind countries like Japan, South Korea, and China (well, at least Shanghai and Hong Kong).
Except the Netherlands. For the past several cycles (the PISA is administered every three years, the next one will be in 2015), the Netherlands has held their own. They routinely have finished in the top ten (although they did drop in place slightly this year). I think it's a reasonable extension of thinking that any country that holds their own so well in the face of international competition speaks to the collective forces of the efforts of both teachers and students. I think it's reasonable to assume that teachers would play a key role in the academic performances of their students and, so, I was curious as to just what kind of preparation Dutch teachers received that allowed students to be so competitive on a global assessment.
First, some fast facts about the Dutch education system:
children begin schooling early, often around age 2
education is compulsory until age 16 but, according to some statistics, about 99% of four year-olds attend school
at the primary grade level (US, K-8), there are no zoned schools, that is requiring students to enroll in schools where they live--students can attend any school they want (but some schools have long waiting lists so parents have to shop around)
at the end of primary school (equivalent to US 8th grade) there is a 'leaving test' called the CITO--the Dutch version of a high stakes exam. Depending on student performance on this exam, they subsequently follow a stream roughly paralleling an academic, general, or vocational track, whatever the student appears best suited for. A diploma is awarded at the end of study depending on the track selected
there is a national curriculum but schools have great leeway in following it (as one professor told me, 'there is a national curriculum...but there isn't')
the Dutch Inspectorate (an autonomous body within the Ministry) oversees quality control and routinely 'inspects' schools and issues status reports
the Ministry of Education is responsible for setting entrance standards for teacher education programs
schools can hire their own teachers but teacher compensation and working conditions are negotiated by the Ministry with teacher union representatives (and depending upon whom you talk to teacher salaries are too low, just OK, or pretty good)
once teachers finish their degree requirements, they don't have to have them approved by the Ministry or any other state agenecy. They bring theur degree to potential places of employment--unlike the US where state ed departments issue licenses and certificates to teachers upon their attaining a prescribed number of credits
One thing did appear as a through line, at least with the Leiden University faculty I talked too. Like the US, and probably a good number of other countries, teaching is not a job held in especially high esteem in the country. There did seem to be a consensus that skilled candidates for teaching were getting harder and harder to recruit. And why...salaries, shortages, and status---that's the refrain I kept hearing a lot of as I spoke with professionals. Because the teaching profession is also aging in the Netherlands (as it is in the US), there are problems in replacing the present teaching force with educators who have instructional competence.
The teacher education programs at Leiden were mostly at the Master's level. When a person decided to enter the teaching profession, universities offer them programs largely dependent upon where and what they plan to teach. This aspect of Dutch education is particularly interesting. It seems that teacher education is tracked, or perhaps a better descriptor for it is 'streamed.' Let's say a teacher decides that he/she wants to teach in a primary school. If this is the case, they can attend an HBO (Higher Professional Education)and not a university institution. HBO programs can run up to four years, but this time period can vary. Teacher candidates in these programs must pass exams in language and mathematics at the end of the first year in order to continue. A the program's completion, they must then pass a final examination before receiving a certificate of higher professional education. These individuals can then teach all subejcts to children who are between the ages of 4 and 12. This is a little different than what we're used to in the US where a middle school might require teachers to
demonstrate more mastery in one content area as opposed to multiple areas as in a K-5 setting.
Things get a little more complicated at the secondary level. If someone plans on a secondary school career, they can enroll at either an HBO or university. Entrance requirements for both of these vary. HBOs are a bit easier to enroll in. If you want ao go to a university (like Leiden), students must have completed the longer academic (VWO) upper secondary track. What this does, effectively, is 'seed' degrees, that is degrees from universities are considered higher status than those from HBOs. As a final certification, teachers are authorized to teach at either grade two (lower secondary) or grade one (all secondary) levels. Interestingly, teachers with doctorates are not uncommon in the Netherlands.
As you might have surmised by now, this is an interesting way to do business. Separating out primary and secondary teachers and differentiating the pathways might be an effective way to prepare teachers for the classroom-- perhaps a 'secret' to student performance? One of the Ministry officials I met with told me that the Ministry is also highly involved in teacher education programs and works with schools to ensure that quality control in teacher preparation programs is high. The fact that the Ministry plans to offer more academically-oriented programs in teacher preparation speaks to their goal of recruiting better quality students into the country's teaching force.
One thing I was curious about--have American-style alternative teacher preparation programs like Teach for America made any inroads into Dutch education. Apparently not--neither the professors at Leiden nor Ministry officials knew of any Dutch equivalent. Nor were they familiar with TFA. (By the way, same with charter schools--no one had heard of anything like them conceptually making their way into Dutch educational culture.)
Finally, one thing I was curious about was the presence (and power) of a teacher union in the Netherlands. For this, I go back to the PISA discussion. When PISA scores are published, much has sometimes been made of the non-presence (and, by extension, non-effect) of a teachers union in the highest performing countries. Except for Finland (and Canada and Japan). The success story of Finnish students has inspired a line to form of what some have called 'edutourism' to Helsinki--that is people travelling to Finland to learn more about their education system which has outperformed most all EU countries (however, the latest 2012 results begin to tell a different story). And Finland's teachers are unionized. So, I was curious. What is the state of teacher unions or teacher organizations in the Netherlands.
Next blog post.
