CDA and SP want schools to stop setting new requirements every year for calculators that students are allowed to use. MPs René Peters (CDA) and Peter Kwint (SP) will submit a proposal to this effect on Wednesday during a debate on digitization in education. They count on the support of a parliamentary majority.
“New calculators are brought onto the market with some regularity,” says Peters. “With new functions that are not necessary for good education. And who even have to be physically disabled during exams. Manufacturers get rich from this, but parents are unnecessarily expensive. That has to stop.”
According to the members of parliament, the cabinet should lay down for a longer period of time which requirements calculators must meet in the classroom. It should also be made clear to parents that all machines that meet these requirements may be used anywhere. “Life is expensive enough already,” said Kwint.
Cost item
In the senior years of havo and vwo, for example, students cannot escape the purchase of a graphic calculator, a compulsory purchase of about 110 euros. It is a cost item that can get quite out of hand for parents, partly because the devices are frequently renewed. School costs for parents quickly go up to hundreds of euros per year, calculated father Arjen Van Gijssel.
About a year and a half ago, Van Gijssel made the news with his fight against the expensive graphical calculators in secondary education. He wrote to several Members of Parliament and received support from all over the country. That same day, CDA member of parliament René Peters was on the phone. A week later, a parliamentary majority instructed education minister Arie Slob to look again at the obligation for parents to frequently purchase these expensive calculators.
Not much later, in September 2021, Minister Slob announced that the mandatory purchase of graphing calculators would not disappear for the time being. In a letter to parliament, he stated that it was too late to include the mandatory purchase of the graphing calculator in the evaluation of the so-called Free School Books Act. This law was introduced in 2008 with the aim of limiting the costs for parents.
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