Substandard education quality and lagging student numbers are killing five of the eight schools for Personal Vocational Education (PVO, formerly SvPO): Utrecht, Amsterdam, Hoorn, Kapelle and Hengelo, with together more than a thousand students. The minister is turning off the money tap at two of these schools.
Text Arno Kersten – Education Magazine Editorial – January 18, 2024 – 5 Minutes to read
The PVO school in Amsterdam is one of the schools that will close; image editing
Each school examines how this can best be phased out. That will happen next summer, probably writes Minister Mariëlle Paul wrote to the House of Representatives on Thursday evening. Municipalities and other school boards also play a role in this. ‘This is a disappointing outcome for everyone, but especially for the students of these schools and their parents. In all cases, we are working hard to find a suitable solution for the students so that they get what they are entitled to: good education.’
The quality is in order at the three remaining schools – in Hurdegaryp, Geldermalsen and Deventer.
Money tap closed
The minister turns off the money tap at two schools. Into the branch chapel, which was declared very weak in 2022, will be closed because the number of students has been below the closure standard for too long. The school had been given respite from the minister, provided that the quality of education had now improved to ‘sufficient’. That did not happen (verdict: insufficient) and that is why the plug is being pulled. At the school Utrecht funding for the HAVO department will be stopped, because it is still very weak. The pre-university education department alone (judgment: insufficient) is not considered viable, and that is why the school board is going to phase it out.
The board sees no future for the other three schools. The Hoornse The PVO school has again been rated very weak, which is why the board wants to dismantle or transfer it. The Amsterdam Although the school no longer scores very poorly (assessment: insufficient), the board still chooses to phase out the school due to the declining number of students. The school in Hengelo has not yet been investigated, but has so few students that the board is also going to close this location.
Recovery studies
Last autumn, the Education Inspectorate carried out remedial investigations into the quality of education at four schools that had been declared very weak. Minister Paul warned last November for closure if the quality of education had not improved enough. There has been unrest around the schools, known for their small classes, for years. At the beginning of June 2022, Paul’s predecessor Dennis Wiersma forced the then director and co-founder Misha van Denderen to resign. He put forward an interim board that had to put things in order, both in terms of educational content and finances.
In June 2022, Dennis Wiersma forced the then director and co-founder to resign
The Education Inspectorate also found financial mismanagement. According to research, approximately 22 million euros in government funding was spent unlawfully, of which 16 million was spent on the renovation and new construction of four school buildings. It reconstructed that publicly financed real estate had been placed with a private foundation that was also chaired by Van Denderen. Education magazine. The inspectorate filed a report for withdrawing money from education. The Public Prosecution Service started a criminal investigation and, at the beginning of last year, seized properties, plots and bank accounts worth millions. It was recently announced that the school buildings have been transferred to the schools after all. The justice department subsequently dismissed the case on policy grounds. That This means that the Public Prosecution Service refrains from prosecuting because of a social interest.
Small classes
The schools for personal education – SvPO, as they were called for a long time – were founded by Van Denderen and his wife Suzan Polet. In the summer of 2010, the first school started in Kapelle in Zeeland. In a time of economies of scale, the initiative stood out: classes of sixteen students, a small-scale organization and a lot of contact time. Partly thanks to clever marketing – ‘The schools are simply funded by the government, but offer education as if you were at an expensive private school’ – SvPO had no complaints about interest. New schools were added in Hurdegaryp (2013) and Geldermalsen (2016) in Friesland, all with the same educational concept and organizational set-up.
Schools for personal education (starting year)
Chapel (2010)
Hurdegarip (2013)
Geldermalsen (2016)
Amsterdam (2017)
Utrecht (2017)
Horn (2019)
Deventer (2019)
Hengelo (2019)
With five new schools in 2017 (Utrecht, Amsterdam) and 2019 (Hoorn, Hengelo and Deventer), SvPO experienced rapid growth in a short time. Criticism also emerged: teachers talked about, among other things, an excessive drive for efficiency, outdated teaching materials and a lack of professional control. In the meantime, a lot of education money ended up outside the classroom, in the bank account or in bricks and mortar, according to figures the Education Magazine. The foggy financial constructions, parental contributions and money flows between school foundations and private foundations, all chaired by Van Denderen at the time, also raised many questions.
Very weak
In the autumn of 2019, the Education Inspectorate declared the quality of education at the Utrecht school to be very poor; the first SvPO school that this happened to. Vulnerable students in particular were at risk, the report found. Van Denderen did not agree with the judgment and tried to keep the report out of the public by going to court, to no avail. It was not the first, nor the last time that he took the Education Inspectorate to court. According to him, they paid too little attention to the positive performance of students.
Later, the schools in Amsterdam, Hoorn (in 2021) and Kapelle (in 2022) were also rated very weak, despite another lawsuit. The inspection reports led to more and more repair orders. Dissatisfaction about management, among other things, led to high turnover among teachers at some schools. In June 2021, teacher Bert Mul from the Frisian school in Hurdegaryp was wrongly suspended; the judge reversed that decision after summary proceedings.
All the commotion surrounding the schools has had an impact on their popularity: the influx decreased
All the commotion surrounding the schools has had an impact on their popularity: the influx has decreased and student numbers are lagging behind expectations. This not only happened to the schools in Utrecht and Amsterdam, but also to the oldest schools in Kapelle and Hurdegaryp. Of the five ‘mature’ schools, four fell far below the closure standard. This trend continues this school year. The branch in Hengelo, one of three young branches, has only 122 students. Only the schools in Geldermalsen and Deventer stand out in a positive way. Last summer, Anneke van der Schaaf took over as director of all PVO schools.
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2024-01-18 17:52:09
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