Secondary education in the 1990s

Many changes and innovations have been set in motion in Dutch secondary education in recent years: the introduction of basic secondary education, increases in scale, profiles and the 'house of study' in the second phase of senior general secondary and pre-university education, new programmes for pre-vocational secondary education and a new pupil care structure. All these changes have created a great deal of unrest in the education system, and have also generated a large amount of discussion in political circles and in the media.

This publication first looks at the different problems and considerations which underlay all these innovations. The current status and experiences gained to date are also reviewed. The central focus is on the effects at pupil level. Are pupils in large, broad-based school communities more negative about their school and their education than pupils in small, specialist schools? Do they benefit from a school which combines different school types, or do they see this as a disadvantage? To what extent have school transfer patterns changed as a result of the different policy interventions? Has there been a decrease or an increase in the inequality of opportunity in secondary education in recent years? The report provides answers to questions such as these. It also looks at the extent to which the problems that led to the innovations in the early 1990s have eased since then. Based on the findings, a number of suggestions are made for reappraisal and adaptation. The purpose of the report is to engender a discussion on this.