Dutch primary secondary school teachers have more teaching hours and more pupils under their wings than any other country in the OECD apart from the US, according to a new report quoted by the Telegraaf.

The paper says the OECD report shows Dutch teachers’ are up to 1.5 times as ‘productive’ as teachers in the other industrialised countries
The AOb teaching union told the Telegraaf the survey showed that thousands more teachers were needed in the Netherlands. ‘Having extra teaching staff would allow teachers to prepare their lessons better and give pupils the more individual attention they need,’ a spokesman told the paper.
The union called on education minister Ronald Plasterk to take urgent action to make teaching a more attractive career. ‘We have to have good people in front of the class,’ the spokesman told the paper.
The report also showed the Netherlands spends slightly more than the OECD average on education per pupil but that spending on university and hbo students has gone down slightly.
The Netherlands spends some 5.5% of GDP on education, below the OECD average of just over 6%.