The proportion of foreign students in Dutch higher education is growing, according to internationalisation organisation Nuffic. This study year, it reports, 11.5% of students at Dutch colleges and universities are from abroad, compared with 10.5% last year. These 85,955 young people are from 170 other countries, and there has been a particular increase in those from Italy and China. About a quarter come from Germany. There has also been a growth in people from outside Europe, who get no government money and fund their own degrees, and now this group makes up almost 27% of the total numbers. But not everybody is happy with the development, which involves more and more subjects being taught in English. A group of professors, writers and journalists, has written to parliament to ask for changes in the law for a ‘more sensible balance’ of Dutch and English in higher education and to protect the Dutch language.  More >

School pupils and students are being urged to report ‘left wing indoctrination’ in the classroom to a special hotline set up by the nationalist political party Forum voor Democratie. The hotline was launched by the party's scientific institute, shortly before the party's strong performance in last week's provincial elections, and was condemned by ministers during a debate on Wednesday. 'In the Dutch education system, pupils and students are being indoctrinated with the favourite political ideas of their teachers by the conveyor belt,' the Renaissance Institute states on its website. 'It is happening in both subtle and less subtle ways and more and more pupils and parents have had enough,' the website states. Pupils are being urged to email the institute their experiences with 'biased exam questions, one-sided text books, oikophobia projects and partisan teachers.' Oikophobia in a political context refers to political ideologies that are said to repudiate one's own culture and laud others. Education minister Ingrid van Engelshoven said the initiative was both distasteful and detrimental to the safety of teaching staff. Nevertheless, ‘it is up to the schools how to deal with this,’ she said. The Renaissance Institute says it wants to produce an inventory of left wing indoctrination in the classroom and to find out how often it happens. ‘Pupils don’t have to film their teachers,’ spokesman Rob Rooken told RTL Nieuws. ‘There are all sorts of ways which they can make reports.’ ‘We are not going to publish the names of teachers,' he said. 'We are simply compiling a list.' Support The initiative is supported by the anti-immigration PVV which also claims schools are indoctrinating children with left-wing ideas. ‘It is a very good idea. Actually it was mine,’ MP Harm Beertema said. Arnhem trade school teacher Tommy Derksen has already reported himself via an open letter to Forum. ‘I don’t want anyone else to have to take the trouble to report me – so I am making this registration voluntarily,’ he said on Twitter. ‘History teaches us what telling tales and intimidation leads to.’ At the same time, Van Engelshoven has urged school directors to do more to support teaching staff who are outed on social media by pupils. In one recent case, a teaching assistant was suspended after describing the prophet Mohamed as a paedophile.  More >

Between 35,000 and 40,000 teachers and lecturers gathered in the centre of The Hague on Friday as teachers went on strike for more pay and better working conditions. The strike, organised by teaching unions Aob and FNV Onderwijs, lead to the closure of hundreds of schools around the country. According to one survey, 2,600 primary schools were shut. Teachers have been campaigning for improvements since 2017 but primary schools have, until now, been at the forefront. Today's campaign involved all sections of the education sector. In total, teachers are asking the government to increase spending on education by €4bn, of which €3bn would go on primary and secondary education and the rest on  colleges and universities. Strikers 'I am protesting against the under-funding of academic education,' former university lecturer turned secondary school teacher Gijs van Donselaar told the NRC. 'We've had to shorten modules, reduce the number of hours and that means less in depth teaching,' he said. Elsewhere on the Malieveld, primary school teacher  Maaike van der Zee told the paper: 'Last Wednesday I had kids from group 8 in my nursery class,' she said. 'I had to explain money sums to them. Both they and my four-year-olds got half a lesson.'  More >

Primary and secondary schools across the country will be closed on Friday as teachers go on strike in support of better working conditions and more pay. The nationwide teachers strike is the third in two years and comes on top of several regional strikes throughout the country last year. It has been called by the Aob teaching union and the FNV. Kim van Strien, is a French teacher in Katwijk and a member of Teachers in Action, told DutchNews.nl: 'We’re doing something important and that needs to be recognised.' Not all teachers support the strike, however, and the CNV-affiliated teaching union does not plan to join in, pending the outcome of current negotiations with the government. In total, teachers are asking the government to increase spending on education by €4bn, of which €560m would go on bringing primary school salaries into line with secondary schools. Other funding would go to providing additional support staff and reducing the workload of teachers. Teacher shortages are a problem in the Netherlands, with some schools dropping classes because they can no longer find teachers to teach them. Other school districts have considered shortening the school week and have even resorted to having parents and civil servants serve as substitutes when there are not enough teachers to cover the classes.  More >