What is the NVvTO?
The “Nederlandse Vereniging voor Thuisonderwijs” (NVvTO) means the Netherlands Home Education Association. It is an organization of parents (and other adults who function as such) who home-educate their children, or have done so in the past, or plan to do so in the future.
Is the NVvTO based on a particular view of life?
Not at all! The NVvTO is meant for all parents who (plan to) home-educate, regardless of their religion, personal philosophy, country of origin, ethnic identity, occupation, educational method, and state of health and/or handicap of parent or child. The association aspires to preserve its pluralistic nature.
What does the NVvTO do?
The NVvTO is a forum where we can meet each other and share our ideas and experiences. We therefore can support each other in order to serve the needs and interests of our children in an the way we think is best.
What else does the NVvTO do?
The NVvTO exists to serve home-educating parents according to their wishes. For instance, this may include events for our children and supporting a lending library for books and mate-rials. Members inform each other about the laws concerning home education and their current interpretation. The NVvTO also aims to make home education more accessible in the Netherlands through dialogues with government and legislature, on both local and national levels.
What is the NVvTO’s position on public schooling?
Home education is supposed to be an option, not an obligation. The NVvTO supports the right of all parents to have their children attend a school if and as long as they wish so.
Education law in The Netherlands
In principle, every child that resides in The Netherlands is subject to compulsory school attendance for his education from his fifth birthday on. This means that s/he must:
a. be enrolled at a government approved school;
b. attend this school whenever it is open, barring certain circumstances such as illness.
The compulsory education law (Leerplichtwet) is enforced by a Compulsory Education Officer, (leerplichtambtenaar, hereafter CEO), who is employed by the municipality. The CEO regularly extracts a list of school-aged children from the municipality’s registry of residents and compares it to the lists of enrolled children provided by the local schools. When a discrepancy is found the CEO sends a letter to the child’s parents inquiring where the child is enrolled. This in itself is fairly common. As parents have a great deal of freedom of choice in schools, many children are enrolled in schools outside the municipality in which they live. When the CEO receives the information about the school in which the child is enrolled from the parents, s/he verifies it by checking with the school.
Children who do not appear in the registry, such as tourists and illegal residents, are not subject to this procedure. Although the police can legally pick up children from the streets, in practice no cases of this happening in this country are known.
The tourist status is extended for a maximum of three months, after which the tourist is required to leave the country. It is not legal or even possible to avoid registering a child with resident status. A child born in the country must be registered within three days from birth.
Dutch law and home education
Although home education in itself is not recognized by law in the Netherlands, a growing number of families have qualified for an exemption from compulsory school registration. The ease with which such an exemption is attained depends largely on the personal disposition of your CEO and/or your municipality’s policy, on the wording of your appeal, and a bit on your personal presentation.
Once such an exemption is acknowledged, the authorities have no more legal way to regularly supervise your child’s education. Reading the law, one might think that in case of a school exemption education is no longer mandatory at all. However, the Civil Code states that parents have to care for their children’s personality development and wellbeing (art. 1:247 Burgerlijk Wetboek). This means you are bound to provide your child a suitable education anyway, in accordance with your own principles.
The legality of home education is mostly based on article 5, clause b, of the Compulsory Education Law, which exempts parents from registering their child at a school if they object to the orientation (richting) of the education given by all schools within a reasonable distance from their home (around 20 km, depending on the child’s age). Court precedents have made clear that richting stands for the religion or life-philosophy on which the school has been founded. Parents may object to public schools as well as other schools with a neutral orientation. However, objecting to educational methods or to legal requirements concerning education do not lead to legal exemption.
A child’s special needs or the fact that he is un-happy or bullied in school also do not qualify the family for exemption from the compulsory school registration. In a small but growing number of cases families have been able to negotiate an exemption from regular school attendance, legally based on article 11, clauses d or g, of the Compulsory Education Law. In some of those cases the education is provided for by the parents, assisted by a correspondence school.
In order to apply for the exemption you must notify the municipality of your residence at least one month before your child’s fifth birthday, or if you arrive in the country after this time, as soon as you are settled in. Your notice should include the name of the child and the reason why you think you qualify for exemption.
You better not send your child to a school if you hope to be exempt because of article 5, clause b of the Compulsory Education Law, as article 8 of this law specifically rules out exemptions in cases where during the previous year the child has attended a school of the orientation against which the parents object. Recent courtcases have however shown that this legal barrier is not held against parents who present a change in their religious or philosophical convictions and give insight in this change. Another way to overcome this barrier is to move to an area where no school of the former orientation is available.
The exemption is valid for (the remainder of) one school year, which runs from the first of August till the 31st of July. You have to submit a notice every year before the first of July, specifying each child.
This information is of a general nature. While every effort has been made to ensure the appropriateness and accuracy of this leaflet, the NVvTO accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage howsoever caused. For further information please contact us.
Version date: September, 2007.
Mailinglist
If you like to mail with other English speaking parents you are welcome to join the English language mailinglist about Home Education in The Netherlands. To subscribe you can send an email (without subject or text) to he-nl-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
