Some 207,000 secondary school pupils begin almost three weeks of school-leaving exams on Monday.

Teenagers at vocational schools kick off with French, pre-college (havo) pupils face management and organisation while pre-university (vwo) pupils start with Dutch.

For the first time this year, havo and vwo pupils may only fail one subject out of maths, English and Dutch to have an overall average pass. The national exams account for around half a pupil’s final score.

Gap year

Research by Nos television shows that 20% of pre-college and university pupils had planned to take a gap year but only 5% will actually do so.

This is because September’s student intake is the last to qualify for a student grant. Grants are set to be abolished in 2014, although the plan may run into trouble in the upper house of parliament.