How do we Make Up for Learning Disadvantages?

Dutch schools have been closed for a long time now due to COVID-19. It is clear that all primary school students have fallen behind in arithmetic, language and reading comprehension. “On balance, it comes down to the fact that they didn’t learn anything at home during the first lockdown,” says Lex Borghans, Professor of Labour Economics and Social Policy at Maastricht University.

Borghans looked at how the students scored on tests they took when they returned to school shortly after the first lockdown. For years, students have scored more or less the same on these tests, but now he saw that the knowledge of all students from both lower and upper years in the field of reading, writing and arithmetic has decreased enormously. Now that schools were closed for the second time, he fears that the backlogs have increased further.

Children from group 3, who start learning to read, write and do arithmetic, have been hit the hardest, according to the professor. In Amsterdam, ‘De Zeven Zee’ primary school has decided to bring group 3 back to school. “We were certainly afraid that backlogs would arise and we are now seeing that again. In the field of reading, the pupils’ development has stagnated or they have deteriorated”, says teacher Patricia. Because they could justify the children falling behind in learning, they were allowed to teach in a physical setting a few days a week.

So, now that primary schools have reopened again, how should we catch up? Lex Borghans argues that all missed lessons should be made up for. “For example, an extra hour at school every day or on Saturday morning, or postpone or shorten the summer vacation.” But now that the school year is already halfway through, the question for him is whether that is enough. “And then next school year we have to start with material that we should have done this year.”

Ministers have also acknowledged that there are significant backlogs, but there is no plan yet for how to make up for it. At the beginning of 2021, the education councillors of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague raised the alarm. In a letter they called on the Government to come up with a National Education Plan. “Money and support are needed”, explains one councillor. “It is an illusion to think that we can resolve the backlogs quickly.” In Rotterdam last year, after the first lockdown, they successfully organised a summer school for 4000 primary school students. This was also recommended to other cities. “We mainly focused on language, but also on the mental health aspect. So a lot of sports and group assignments.”

A National Education Plan has been promised and will be drawn up at the beginning of March. Some MPs think it is all taking far too long and are for a fast and substantial money injection. One MP says, “we also support KLM with billions. We also need to give these children a soft landing.” They want to invest billions in education, including primary education. They would like this money mainly to go to disadvantaged schools and to be used for organising summer schools, extra teachers and lessons, for example.

This is an adapted version of the article which appeared on BNNvara’s website on 30 Jan 2021 in Dutch, based on a short documentary in the programme “Kassa”.