Efforts to allow ordinary citizens to have topics debated in parliament have not proved to be a success, Trouw reports on Friday.

In the eight years since citizens’ initiatives have been possible, just six have ended up as a motion discussed in parliament and not one of those has been passed, the paper says.

Earlier this week, junior education minister Sander Dekker dismissed efforts by one citizens’ group to impose official maximum class sizes on Dutch schools. It was up to schools themselves to deal with the issue he said.

The citizens’ initiative was introduced so that ordinary people can apply to have particular topics discussed in parliament.

The petitions require 40,000 signatures to qualify for consideration, and the demands include they must be for a topic not discussed in parliament for the past two years.