Steps need to be taken to make it easier for children doing vocational training to move up into pre-college streams but there is no reason to raise the age limit for secondary education selection, according to a new report from the education council.

At the moment, children in the Netherlands are allocated a type of secondary school at the age of 11 or 12. This is early in international terms and experts say it disadvantages late developers, children with an ethnic minority background and children from a low socio-economic background.
Some 60% of children go to vocational training schools (vmbo) and it is difficult to move up to pre college (havo) levels.
The council says there is no reason to delay the choice for all pupils. Instead, local authorities should set up mixed vmbo and havo classes for first year secondary school pupils.
And schools with a broad spectrum of education should offer mixed gym, lifestyle studies and art and culture classes. ‘You don’t need to be intelligent per se for these subjects and it is sensible to mix pupils so they don’t grow up in isolation,’ the report said.
While mixed schools are widely available in rural areas, in cities such as Amsterdam, most schools only offer one or two educational streams.