Thousands of striking teachers gathered in Utrecht on Thursday in protest at government plans to increase their teaching hours and cut holidays.

The strike led to some 200 schools closing their doors for the day. In total, 20,000 teachers and school support staff took industrial action, according to union AOb.
Education minister Marja van Bijsterveldt earlier said teachers were irresponsible to strike, particularly as this is an exam week.
‘We are not striking because we like it but because we have to,’ Gijsbert Boogia of the Abvakabo FNV teaching union told Nos television. ‘The minister is not happy about the strike. Does she not realise there is never a good day to strike in education?’

Longer hours
The strike is in protest at the cabinet’s plans to increase the number of teaching hours in pre-college and pre-university education to 1,040 a year, up from the standard 1,000. The change is at the insistence of the populist PVV, despite a government committee recommending no change.
The extra hours, teachers say, will be impossible to meet with current funding and staffing levels, meaning pupils will be ‘locked up’ for hours without supervision or lessons.
Teachers are also angry that their official summer holiday will be cut from seven to six weeks. They argue much of the long break is taken up with preparation and meetings, and that they need time off to recover from the pressures of the job.
Van Bijsterveldt says reducing the summer holiday will allow teachers to better spread work currently done as overtime and avoid pressure peaks.

Special education
In addition, teachers are opposed to the cabinet’s special education reforms which they fear will mean more special needs children in ordinary schools without proper funding. They are also unhappy at the fact their pay has been frozen and that the cabinet is pressing ahead with introducing performance-related pay.
When Van Bijsterveldt was appointed minister, some 45% of teachers said they would give her the benefit of the doubt, Trouw points out. That percentage has now halved, and just 3% of teachers think the government’s measures are improving education.
Photo: Novum/Bas de Meijer