Urgent call to renovate schools after years of short-term fixes

Dutch municipalities and education associations have called on the ministry of education to bring the country’s school buildings up to code by 2050. In a joint letter to outgoing minister of education Mariëlle Paul, the Association of Netherlands Municipalities, the PO Council and the VO Council said the renovation of school buildings must be placed “high on the list of priorities” after years of patchwork fixes that haven’t addressed the larger problems of the nation’s decaying educational facilities. “This is the only way to create a healthy indoor climate in all school buildings, and we can make school buildings more sustainable and make them suitable for inclusive and modern education,” the letter states. “It concerns school buildings that are up to 72 years old, where we only stick plasters within this approach.” Spokesman Thijs den Otter of the PO council told Dutch News that many of the country’s schools have been written off for years but have yet to be renovated or replaced. “We are of course trying to change that, because students and teaching staff spend whole days in buildings that do not meet the requirements.” The letter writers estimate that €1.2 billion per year is necessary to renovate the country’s schools.