NOS/Jeroen van EijndhovenStudents in practical education work in the healthcare and welfare sector, among other things
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 10:19
High school students in practical education want to be able to travel for free by bus and train when they have to go on an internship. Students and their teachers therefore presented a pamphlet to members of the House of Representatives in The Hague. The education budget is being debated there today.
In the upper grades of practical education, about 11,000 students do internships three or four days a week. The internship location is not always nearby, and the costs for using public transport are borne by the students. They don’t think that is fair, because their peers at secondary vocational education, who sometimes do the same internship, are entitled to such a public transport card.
In the Spring Memorandum, the government has agreed on compensation from 2026. A bridging scheme is being considered for the meantime, but it is not yet exactly clear what this will look like. The industry thinks it’s all taking too long.
Peanuts
“We have been working on it for years and it is still not there,” says Nicole Teeuwen NOS Radio 1 News. She is chairman of the Practical Education Sector Council. According to her, the fact that it has not been arranged so quickly is due to the legislation. “Students fall under secondary education and not under vocational education. And that is why it doesn’t work out. While the education is comparable to what students in secondary vocational education do during their internships. It is also the same age category.”
“It is peanuts on a budget worth billions,” says Teeuwen. “We have been promised several times that it would be arranged, but there is always a hitch.”
She also points out that parents of students in practical education often fall into the lowest income categories. “They can’t afford it.”
Wiersma’s commitment
Last year, the now resigned Minister of Education Wiersma promised to arrange it. “It will be fine,” he said after a question about it at a conference. “As a gift, of course, I have to say yes to this question, and I do.”
Chairman Teeuwen of the sector council has now pinned her hopes on a motion about it from GroenLinks-PvdA MP Westerveld. But it is not certain that it will work. “I don’t dare make any statements about it.”
There are approximately 30,000 students in practical education, who are trained to become metalworkers or gardeners, for example. Half of the students will work afterwards, the rest will move on to secondary vocational education.
2024-01-18 09:19:55
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