Billions for education worth little without qualified teachers Shady deals? Face mask procurement affair leads to debate

The Dutch cabinet is planning a onetime injection of 8.5 billion euros into the framework of the National Education Program (NPO). Out of this amount, 5.8 billion euros are reserved exclusively for primary and secondary education. Schools can choose from a “menu” of appropriate interventions, for example extra support in the classroom or online tutoring.

De Volkskrant newspaper reports the main idea is to fight the learning disadvantages caused by the corona virus. In the past months, schools and universities were closed for a long period of time due to the pandemic and could only provide online classes. In many cases, this has led to students falling behind in their learning; the aims to eradicate the corona gap within the next 2.5 years. The available money should be distributed among all educational institutions in the Netherlands. The 6,600 primary schools in the Netherlands will receive 700 euros per student to make up for the corona backlog, or about 1.2 billion euros in total.

However, FD newspaper reports that many education specialists are critical of the project and the allocation of the extra budget. Representatives of teachers, school leaders and students say the NPO, which has been launched in a rush, is not very effective. Moreover, the intended timeframe for the NPO is far too ambitious, in their view. They propose to spread the funds over a longer period of time, for example 4 years. This gives the educational sector the space to use the money in a more targeted way and to support students for a longer period of time. In addition, the experts criticized the lack of concrete goals. The exact nature of the corona learning gap was not mapped out nationally and no plans for the evaluation of school performance after the program has ended were planned. This could increase the differences in performance between schools. In any case, they say, there is a need for a permanent raise in the education budget, which should be allocated to solve long-lasting problems in the industry: the shortage of qualified teachers, the high work pressure and the increased inequality of opportunities. Recently, the group was invited to the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) to voice its concerns.

Also, after many years of arguments for structural investments in education to counteract the steady decline in quality, the approval of extra money came just before the March elections. In an interview with FD newspaper, Tamar van Gelder, representative of the AOb, the largest education union in the Netherlands, says the move doesn’t feel correctly planned, but rather as an election stunt.

Additional people De Volkskrant reports that, according to a survey by the General Association of School Leaders (AVS), primary schools want to use the money to put extra people in their classrooms. This includes attracting additional assistants in order to create smaller classes and more individual supervision.

The biggest challenge is to find people to do the job, since there is a shortage of staff, confirms AVS spokesman Rob van Ooijen. “It will be even harder if every school in the country starts recruiting.” And in any case, “if the basic needs are not in order, it’s difficult to eliminate backlogs,” say the aldermen of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. The four major cities want more money for extra learning time for children who desperately need it, for example through pre-school education and summer schools. According to the aldermen, this should not depend on the parents’ income.

As for higher and secondary vocational education, a large part of the money goes to the students themselves. For example, next year they will only pay half of their tuition fees. They will also be allowed to use their public transport card for an additional year.

In June, the minister for Primary and Secondary Education and Media, Arie Slob, scheduled a meeting to ensure that the 8.5 billion euros are actually spent on students. According to the Court of Audit, this was a problem with previous schemes that aimed to reduce the workload in education.

Written by Raphael Vieira

The scarcity of face masks at the start of the corona crisis in 2020 led to questionable trade practices in order to supply enough masks to the Netherlands. When the whole world was on the lookout for machinery and raw materials for face masks, some traders were not averse to making some fast money in deals with the government.

Last week, scrutiny fell on Sywert van Lienden, a 31-year-old businessman, who last year used his personal contact to buy 40 million face masks from China. The Dutch government paid 100 million euros in total – not a bad deal, as € 2.50 per mask was the going price at the time. However, research journalist collective Follow The Money found out that Van Lienden had pocketed 9 million himself, and his associates another 11 million, while he had always maintained he had made no profit from the deal.

Fleur Bakker, co-owner of the Mouthmask factory in Arnhem, comments: “As social entrepreneurs of Refugee Company, a foundation that helps people with a refugee background find a job, we wanted to make a difference. No face masks were made in the Netherlands, and the government had enormous difficulty ordering them abroad.” “We started production ourselves because we saw that there was a lot of uncertainty and cowboy behaviour in the trade. There have been many fast guys who wanted to make some quick money: I buy a lot elsewhere, put it in a container, and sell it for three times the value here. What I now read about entrepreneur Sywert van Lienden, if it is true, is not the way to do it. We did it non-profit until the end of last year – we didn’t want to take advantage of the crisis.”

Minister for Healthcare Tamara van Ark stated that the government had fully pre-funded the €100 million transaction with Relief Goods Alliance, the company of Van Lienden and his associates. Van Lienden had previously stated that the government paid him for the risk he took as an entrepreneur. The entrepreneurs were not required to contribute equity capital; however, they did use a high profit margin.

Van Ark revealed that the LCH, the government agency responsible for buying personal protective equipment (PPE) had opposed the order for Van Lienden and his business partners. According to the minister, the main reason for the opposition was that experienced buyers believed there were already enough mouth masks available on the market. There were also objections about the pricequality ratio. However, according to Van Ark, the fact that half of the 40 million face masks delivered were rejected by the national health authority (RIVM) due to an “intolerable health risk” was not a justification to end the contract. The presence of an Irish CE certificate approved the face masks for sale in the Netherlands. In any case, they were never used because too many mouth masks had already been purchased. among others, PVV leader Geert Wilders insisted.

After the recent commotion, Van Lienden acknowledged that he had made mistakes and that he should have been clear from the start that his company was making a profit. He is now looking for a charity – preferable a cancer research organisation – that will accept the money as a donation. So far, the biggest Dutch cancer charities have refused his donations and stated that the money should be refunded to the government. What happens to the money remains to be seen, therefore.