Anna's Trip to the Benelux 2011: Day 3: Learning Fail

Today we took a tram over to Utrecht University and heard a lecture by Dr. Wiljan van den Akker, the Dean of Humanities. Unfortunately, I happen to be the biggest narcoleptic ever, and staying up last night playing Team Fortress 2 probably did not help. The rooms were way nicer than anything I’ve seen in Berkeley, and the sunlight shining through the windows meant I was pretty much a goner.

Yes, that is me. No, that is not Utrecht University, but you get the idea.

My notes from the lecture itself are not all that good (in fact, they more or less resemble the scribbling of a toddler), so I’ll just recap what we learned about the Dutch education system from yesterday, when I was more coherent. The Dutch have a pretty different system of education from the United States. Once primary education is complete, a national test is conducted for all students. This test basically determines your career path by placing you in one of three high schools based on your score. If you score exceptionally well, you’ll be placed in a high school that prepares you for university. If you score okay, you’ll be placed in a high school that prepares you for administrative work, such as accounting or secretarial work. If for some reason your score falls far below the threshold, you’ll attend vocational school that prepares you for manual work.

As you can imagine, there are a few prime advantages and disadvantages with this policy. Of the advantages, the first is that there is more social mobility. A person who completes university and becomes a lawyer could be considered on the same level as a person who has become a competent electrician, as they both reached the top of their specific career paths. A greater sense of equality is created as a result. Also, high school children who attend college are easily more prepared for university than those of the United States, as their schools ease the transition by introducing college teaching style.

One of the major disadvantages to this system is that the children are tested at a very young age—usually this is by age 12. The scores they get from age 12 could be different if they had tested at age 17. The tester could have a disorder such as dyslexia, might have been particularly sick that day, or might just still have some growing up to do. The test scores might not reflect the child’s full potential. There is also the issue of immigrant children, as they are at a great disadvantage when competing against Dutch children.

We took a tour of Utrecht afterward. We looked around the rest of the university before stopping by some of the many museums scattered around the city. We even walked through the university’s botanical gardens. All of it was very beautiful, even with the rain.