MPs on Tuesday voted against the introduction of tests for pre-school children, despite the education ministry’s plans to introduce testing.

Junior education minister Sander Dekker wanted pre-school children to be tested to see if they recognised colours and words and if they could do basic counting.

However, parliament voted against the tests, saying more room should be given to personal assessment by teachers.

The government’s ambition to give schools a two-year target to raise Cito scores for children in their final year at primary school was also defeated.

‘The Cito test is a good instrument for testing children’s progress but should not be used to measure the quality of schools,’ green party GroenLinks MP Jesse Klaver told parliament.