The government is to double the amount of money it gives to primary schools to help cope with the children of immigrants from eastern Europe, says Thursday’s Volkskrant.

From April 2009, primary schools with more than three newcomers will receive an extra €2,500 a year per pupil.
Schools applying for the grant for the first time will also receive a one-off payment of €5,000, says the paper.
Junior education minister Sharon Dijksma told the Volkskrant the money is intended to pay for teaching assistants or interpreters. ‘Schools taking a majority of foreign pupils deserve decent support in the first year,’ Dijksma said.
There were 2,075 pupils from eastern Europe spread across 1,166 primary schools at the beginning of the 2008 school year. Around threee-quarters of them are Polish.