A special summer school will be set up for the 354 pupils in Maastricht whose exam results were ruled invalid because of administrative errors.

The school authority Limburgs Voortgezet Onderwijs said it would do everything it could to help the students graduate before the end of August so they can still go into further education in the new academic year.

Education minister Arie Slob said last week the affected students would be given extra time to complete the necessary classwork so that their education did not suffer. The pupils were allowed to sit end-of-year exams even though they had not acquired good enough grades during the year to pass.

The summer schools will be held on the VMBO Maastricht school’s campus but  teachers will be brought in from other schools to teach the classes.

Yesterday four teachers at a secondary school in Rijswijk were dismissed for exam fraud after it emerged they had allowed seven students to correct their resit exams after they had finished them.

The Rijswijks Lyceum and its parent organisation, VO Haaglanden, launched an investigation after the discrepancies came to light during a second round of resits. The teachers admitted they had committed the fraud in an attempt to improve the education record of the school, which had been rated ‘weak’ by inspectors in 2013 and 2015.