40 trial projects lined up for voluntary youth community service plan

Some 40 trial projects for the government’s plans to encourage school pupils and young adults to take part in a community work experience programme were presented to the press on Monday.

The activities on offer for the trial period range from helping at sports clubs to the sea rescue service and working in healthcare jobs, the Volkskrant reported on Tuesday.

The scheme to encourage pupils to spend several weeks doing socially useful work is part of the government’s coalition agreement and was included at the behest of the two Christian parties – the CDA and ChristenUnie.

In April it emerged that so few secondary school pupils are interested in taking part in the ‘youth community service’ scheme that the implementation was postponed. It will now not start formally until 2020, the Volkskrant said.

Participants will get a ‘modest’ payment and will have an advantage in applying for government jobs.

The government has had several attempts to introduce some form of community service for youngsters. The last, in which secondary school pupils were required to do 30 hours of socially useful work, was introduced in 2011 and scrapped in 2015.

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