The building is nondescript, a six-story residue of 1980s architecture veiled in a curtain wall of glass and aluminum. The shrieking sound of trains pulling in and out of the central station in the background mixes in with the buzz of afternoon traffic. This could be Phoenix, Minneapolis or Milton Keynes, and the anonymous office could be home to anything from a notary to a telemarketeer. In fact, the place is Leiden and, in the shadow of its surroundings, the building’s occupant is revamping education in the Netherlands.

Early this year, the Dutch public welcomed the arrival of a new math test for high school students as any other educational reform. Parliamentarians made motions, unions complained and newspapers voiced concerns, while the larger trend has stayed out of sight. Updated examination standards and harsher ministry inspections have tightened the screws on school administrations and pupils alike. To keep up, private parties have sprung up to fill the void. They now offer crash courses and cramming classes for nearly every subject in every part of the country. The numbers speak for their success. Statistics from the Dutch statistical office (CBS) show that in less than twenty years, the amount of money spent on these out-of-school solutions has quintupled.

From its anonymous office in Leiden, Lyceo is leading this booming market. Founded a decade ago, it was already helping 6,000 students boost their examination marks in 2011. Now its numbers have spiralled to 20,000, ten times as many as the next-largest competitor.

The Dutch government sees no reason to intervene. “It should not become a stopgap when the school does not deliver,” state secretary Sander Dekker admits, “but if parents and students make that choice, we are not going to forbid them.” The question is whether the surging private classes are anything else but a stopgap, a last resort. And if they are, how affordable is that choice really for parents?

New standards

The system of public education in the Netherlands does not rank badly by international standards. Still, making schools produce ever better students is a rare source of agreement across the political colour palette. From employers, parents and students themselves comes the same demand: their education should be the best — and it should be visible in their test scores. Turning agreement into proper policy is a harder task. The standards have changed — students may now fail fewer courses on their final exams, for example — but the curriculum has not. The education ministry has raised the bar without training students to actually jump higher.

Schools have changed along with the society around them. Working women and double-income families have outsourced not just their intellectual upbringing, but their social upbringing in the slipstream. School teachers are expected to do much more on their job today than transferring skills and knowledge, even if autism and ADD are unfamiliar to them. The tasklist of the modern high-school teacher is a long one, and too long for many already: a quarter of them report suffering from a burn-out in another CBS statistical report.

For many high schools, Lyceo and its competitors are lifesavers. Two or three days of teaching and cramming on the precise content of their final examinations, and students are good to go for their exams. Some are desperate to pass, others need a higher grade to find their way into programmes with admission limits. The students are not the only ones who need to achieve: school managements are similarly judged on good exam results.

An Asian scenario

“You pretty much buy your exam,” says Annelotte Lutterman, chair of high school union LAKS. Those who take the courses never complain, she notices, happy as they are to pass their tests. “But other students tell us that their parents simply cannot afford it”. Students’ parents pay around €150–400 for an exam crash course, or €300 for a month of private tutoring. Annelotte took two training sessions herself, in economics and mathematics, costing 360 euros each.

For LAKS, the pricetag was reason enough to warn for a schism between those who can and those who cannot afford their potential. The same concerns are raised in a recent government-ordered report. In spite of Dekker’s soothing words, it considers an “Asian scenario” in which Dutch students are headed for the same competition and costs as their Korean and Singaporean counterparts.

Like a fashion trend

The math test is the newest innovation in Dutch educationland. From next year, every high school student will be obliged to make and pass the test in order to graduate. Discontent reigns: half of the students may fail such a test, early reports say, and teachers complain that its rapid introduction is reckless. One opposition politician called its passage through parliament “the darkest day for education in my whole life”.

No complaints come from the entrepeneurs, who are already testing their preparation tracks. Final exams are Lyceo’s local specialty, but the full menu has become a fusion of tastes. Through what it calls ‘knowledge partners’, it oversees many of the large private-tutoring companies. Another subsidiary dressed up in partner clothes is Inwijs, which serves the school in myriad ways. It posts and offers teachers, offers consultancy and project management and conducts audits and surveys. Schools themselves are partners too. In exchange for free classrooms, Lyceo offers cheaper trainings for their students. In between classes, in-house Lyceo representatives organise homework assistance and supervision.

Like a fashion trend, the private movement in education has simply become so widespread and unquestioned that not joining its bandwagon is now the active choice. Every student and parent, according to LAKS, knows where school programmes fail, and everyone has heard good stories of tutors and crash courses. The difference is between those who can and those who cannot afford to be ‘better safe than sorry’. “I find it terrible that I needed this,” says Annelotte of her own training sessions, “but it really helped. The problem is that they are just really good.”