Radio Netherlands visited an Islamic School in Amsterdam to find out why these schools are doing so poorly.
The Dutch Education Ministry asks Islamic schools to return 4.5 million euros the government says was spent illegally
The As Soeffah school is in one of the poorer neighbourhoods of Amsterdam. Founded just a few years ago, the school already has 400 children and opened a sister school in The Hague. Director Rahmat Khan Abdur Rahman sums up the characteristics of a Muslim school:
"If you would come to the school in the morning for the start of the day, you'd see the kids recite the Qur'an, sing Islamic songs, have a talk, things like this.
The kids pray at school. We celebrate Muslim holidays. Of course, Dutch holidays are also normal at the school. We give them attention, too."
Bad marks
The Dutch education system is unique in the world. Families can choose where their kids go to primary school, and the government subsidises different types of schools - traditional, Montessori, Steiner, but also Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim. Moreover, 86 percent of the schools have misused government funds, including As Soeffah. And now the Education Ministry asks Islamic schools to return 4.5 million euros the government says was spent illegally.
Some of those funds are spent to bus kids to and from school. That's not an approved use of the subsidy. But As Soeffah director Abdur Rahman disagrees. He says the Education Ministry told the school to use money for bussing since his school is a regional school with pupils from a wider area. Otherwise the kids at As Soeffah are doing pretty well compared to other Islamic Schools.
Accounts of fraud
Accounts of fraud at other Islamic schools point to more obvious misuse like trips to Mecca and payments to board members for non existing tasks. Deputy Education Minister Sharon Dijksma is critical towards the school boards:
A recent report from the Dutch Ministry of Education says that half of the 42 Islamic primary schools in the Netherlands don't meet the minimum education standard
"On the one hand there is maybe a culture of governing on the boards of these schools that's not very good. On the other hand, you could say that this group of Islamic schools aren't working as long as all the other schools, but that can't be an excuse. They have to deliver."
Pillarized school system
The Dutch parliament asks for stern measures, while some politicians want to ban Islamic schools altogether. But to do so would mean dismantling a one-hundred-year-old system based on the idea of separate but equal schools. Jasper van Dijk, an MP for the Socialist Party, doesn't want to scrap the whole system. He would, however, like to see some radical changes:
"Well, we do have Christian schools, we do have Jewish schools, so we do have Muslim schools. That is part of our education system. So we have to correct the law and say that all schools should try to have a balanced group of children in their schools. And for me, integration and quality together is more important than this pretty old-fashioned pillarized system of religious schools."
For the foreseeable future, that old-fashioned system will remain in place. And the kids at the As Soeffah school in Amsterdam will have to make the best of it.
John Tyler
Radio Netherlands
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Fake names on the payroll; entire schools taking trips abroad with school funds; school boards fired for incompetence. Just a few of the problems the government has found at Islamic Schools in the Netherlands.
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