The number of students signing up for training as primary school teachers continues to fall with provisional figures for the coming academic year indicating a decrease of almost 11%, reports today’s Volkskrant.

The best year for teacher training course registrations was 2003 when 12,000 students signed up for the so-called Pabo, the paper says.
The reason for this year’s drop is not clear but the higher vocational education (HBO) board believes it could be connected to the fact that aspiring primary school teachers have had to take a pre-entry maths test since last year. This could be putting potential teachers off, said the HBO board.
Meanwhile university and HBO registrations for science subjects has risen this year by 9% and almost 6% respectively, reports the paper.