Education support group Qompas has concluded an 8-year study that surveyed some 170,000 15-year-olds and has yielded the conclusion that Dutch students are increasingly disinterested in “traditional” school subjects.
Subjects such as French, German, and Art are amongst those on the decline in interest for students who are about to choose their subject specialties. On the other side, subjects like math, economics, history, and geography hold steady in popularity. Regardless, across the spectrum of gender and age, students are becoming less interested in school as a whole and, thus, consistently scoring lower on exams.
Though Qompas has not attributed any single factor to these dynamics, school inspectors have issued strong words of caution on the disturbing trend. The inspectors attribute the low marks to yielding inequality of opportunity, increased socio-economic disparity, and is exacerbated by a general shortage of teachers.
