Education council plans to close hundreds of primary schools with fewer than 100 pupils have been shelved, sources have told RTL news.

Some 1,400 schools, or 20% of the total, would not meet the new cut-off point for pupil numbers, the sources said. At the moment, village schools are only shut down when they have fewer than 23 pupils. The education council said in February the threshold should be raised to 100.

Junior education minister Sander Dekker said at the time the quality of the education on offer is key, not total pupil numbers. Instead he called on small schools to work more closely together. Those plans will be outlined later on Wednesday.