The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) provides a budget to combat educational arrears in secondary education (VO). Currently, this budget is distributed based on the percentage of students in a branch that live in the APC area. However, living in the APC area is a fairly rough predictor of the potential for educational disadvantage. So the OCW is looking for a better allocation key.
Statistics Netherlands previously developed a model to calculate the risk of educational disadvantage for each pupil. For this purpose, several characteristics are examined (educational level and parental origin, how long the mother has lived in the Netherlands, whether the parents are going through debt restructuring). This model provides a better explanation for the chance of educational disadvantage than the area in which the students live.
However, the budget for combating educational defects is not given to students directly, but to the educational institution in which they pursue education. Therefore, the chances of educational deprivation for the pupils in the branch/school must be added so that the degree of deprivation can be calculated for each branch/school. The budget can then be allocated on the basis of the degrees of these arrears. This addition can be done in several ways. Therefore, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has to make many policy choices. Statistics Netherlands has determined the impact of different options on (re)distributing the budget.
This report describes the development and detail of the new distribution key. The OCW aims to implement this new distribution switch in 2024.
