14 March 2007

AMSTERDAM – Give teachers better prospects during the course of their career. They should be able to continue to develop and have the promise of a better salary, even if they do not choose to move into management positions. This will help keep good teachers in the education system.

This is one of the recommendations that employers' organisation VNO-NCW and the association for small and medium-sized businesses MKB-Nederland have submitted to the committee that the cabinet has charged with drawing up an action plan for education.

The quality of education must be significantly improved, say the employers in their "quality agenda for education" presented today. National quality standards must be adhered to more strictly and schools must not be able to opt out of standardised tests, says chairman of the VNO –NCW Bernard Wientjes.

He is arguing for better pay for teachers who are hard to find or perform well. Teachers who want to earn more in the current system generally have to take on a management position. "We have enough managers in education, it is teachers we have to hold on to," Wientjes says. But he does not think a general salary increase is a good idea.

The transmission of knowledge must become the focus once again, the employers say. There has been too much attention on social skills over the past few years. "Skills like reading, writing, math, language, they've all fallen behind," Wientjes says.

Employers also think that the standardised CITO test should be compulsory. They also want spot check introduced to monitor the quality of school inspections in secondary education.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2007]

Subject: Dutch news