Last month, headlines declared that teenagers within the UK had been “the least glad in Europe”. The supply was a report from the Kids’s Society – drawing on information from the 2022 worldwide Pisa research – that discovered 25.2% of 15-year-olds within the UK reported low life satisfaction in comparison with a European common of 16.6%. As is commonly the case, the Netherlands was declared probably the most “glad”, with simply 6.7% reporting low life satisfaction.
It’s tough sufficient to attempt to evaluate issues like life satisfaction throughout international locations and cultures. And figuring out a bit concerning the Dutch system, I’ve more and more realised that many of those numbers don’t inform the entire story. For years, the Dutch have scored extremely on “glad youngsters” in a number of surveys, corresponding to these by the World Well being Group and Unicef. Loads of younger individuals are clearly in good spirits, with admirable ranges of freedom and duty. However all of them? Really, it seems, we don’t know.
For one factor, the Pisa dataset that sparked all these headlines will not be full. The rising variety of youngsters in Dutch particular colleges weren’t surveyed in 2022. Kids in particular colleges with diagnoses corresponding to ADHD and autism might be a part of the research for the primary time in 2025. Influential Well being Behaviour in College-aged Kids (HBSC) research additionally excluded Dutch particular colleges.
Regardless of a 2014 regulation on acceptable training, the proportion of youngsters in Dutch particular colleges, notably youngsters with ADHD and autism, has marched upwards to a document 3.2%. And the small personal faculty sector has ballooned. A report within the Financieele Dagblad final week advised placing youngsters in particular colleges – out of the best way of Dutch dad and mom who don’t need their “regular” ones hindered – will not be greatest for them. And a research by the Inspectorate of Training discovered youngsters with further wants seem much less more likely to get school-leavers’ {qualifications} in a particular faculty than within the mainstream system.
So far as different high-scoring nations go, the Danes excluded youngsters with dyslexia. That gave it an 11.6% exclusion fee, and in a report the Adjudication Group “famous that prime ranges of scholar exclusions might bias efficiency outcomes upwards”. Latvia additionally had a “relatively elevated” fee of lacking some college students, stated the report, as did Croatia, Lithuania and america, “which confirmed a marked improve in exclusions because of college students with purposeful or mental disabilities”. In different phrases, with so many youngsters excluded from the measurements – and this doesn’t even depend the variety of college students who’ve fallen out of the college system totally – it’s laborious to make glib comparisons throughout nations.
The persistently excessive scores for Dutch college students additionally sit uncomfortably towards a latest mania for testing and analysis on this small nation, which has breached all boundaries of widespread sense and kindness. As grades have plummeted in literacy and maths, standardised testing, offered by industrial companies, has proliferated. Many major colleges give youngsters a number of formal exams annually. At secondary degree, some colleges spend three whole weeks a yr on testing. Public well being organisations report that teenage stress ranges are rising.
Should you thought the UK faculty inspectorate’s one-word judgments had been reductive, attempt a Dutch faculty report. I’ve seen a category of youngsters summed up in rows of figures out of 10 and report playing cards on major schoolchildren consisting of pages of graphs. Removed from that image of rosy happiness, some academics and social researchers consider all the Dutch grammar faculty system widens social inequality, whereas the stress of the take a look at on the finish of major can quantity to “little one abuse”.
Because of three-day weeks, there aren’t sufficient academics to cowl courses, and because of this an enormous trade in tutoring (for dad and mom who pays) has emerged. Some major colleges shut for in the future every week final yr, and greater than 25% of the legally required classes have been dropped in some secondaries.
In the meantime, the Dutch youngsters’s ombudsman stated that even pre-Covid, the hole between contented youngsters and sad ones was widening. Kids with Covid-induced difficulties struggled much more after the pandemic. Psychological well being issues are growing, there are lengthy ready lists and criticism has emerged of “abusive” care services. Most worrying is a debate on euthanasia for psychiatric points, together with in youngsters underneath 18: one psychologist not too long ago informed me that some Dutch youngsters “traumatised” by poor care are actually asking docs to assist them die.
Anybody acquainted with the challenges confronted by probably the most susceptible youngsters within the Netherlands, and the state of its training system, wouldn’t be patting themselves on the again about being “happiest in Europe”. (And that’s even earlier than these Dutch teenagers realise they haven’t a hope of shopping for a home or settling down to have youngsters themselves.)
By all means, observers from the UK and elsewhere ought to take up good concepts from internationally, and research evaluating international locations may be useful. However watch out about considering that each one youngsters are happier in another place. They could simply have completely different expectations – and a distinct measure.
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