Frans Timmermans Discusses Education Reform, School Boards, and Policy Changes in GL-PvdA Manifesto

ANPGL-PvdA party leader Frans Timmermans

In previous cabinets, the PvdA contributed to the privatization of public sectors such as public transport and public housing. Now the party is returning to that policy in the joint election manifesto with GroenLinks: the government must take control again.

However, the party leaves education out of the picture, while there are also problems: a teacher shortage, inequality of opportunity and concerns about the basic skills of students. In News hour says party leader Frans Timmermans that he still wants to discuss education reforms.

‘School boards are making a mess’

Many teachers and education experts accuse school boards of not having come up with good solutions to the problem. These boards now largely determine how the 50 billion euros that go annually to education is spent. “The government gives school boards a bag of money and they make a mess of it,” says history teacher John Arts. “The people who really care about education have no say in it.”

In an Ipsos poll commissioned by News hour Nearly three-quarters of the potential GL-PvdA supporters also say that the government should take control in education. But it was PvdA minister Jo Ritzen who was the founder of the current system and the party did not want to change it in later cabinets.

Now Timmermans says he wants to talk to teacher Arts about his complaints “also to address the way in which education is managed”. This could have consequences for current administrators and supervisors in education, including several former PvdA politicians. But the fact that it could affect fellow party members “really doesn’t interest me at all,” says Timmermans.

Meat tax and headscarf positions abandoned

Timmermans had to make significant concessions on other issues to arrive at a joint election manifesto with GroenLinks. For example, the PvdA was previously in favor of a partial burqa ban, partly because the burqa would deprive women of “the opportunity for development and participation”. GroenLinks was against the ban, and the joint program now states that GL-PvdA wants to abolish the ban.

The PvdA was also against the wearing of a headscarf by police officers. The party believed that a neutral image of the police was more important than the free choice to express one’s religion.

GroenLinks did attach more value to that freedom, and in the voting guide GL-PvdA now says that it is in favor of the headscarf in the police. Timmermans: “In the United Kingdom and Canada, for example, this does not lead to any problems for the execution of police work and society is also very used to it.”

His supporters have a slightly different view. Half of potential GL-PvdA voters say in the Ipsos poll that officers should wear a neutral uniform, without religious expressions such as a cross, yarmulke or headscarf. 28 percent disagree.

Lower tax on fruit and vegetables

Then there is another issue on which the GL-PvdA position is unknown: an extra tax on meat. GroenLinks has always been in favor of such a meat tax as a means of calculating the climate and nature damage caused by meat production and to combat animal suffering. The PvdA was against imposing additional costs on people with a lower income.

“We’ll have to talk about that,” says Timmermans. “I think you should do everything you can to encourage people to eat less meat. But I think you should especially reduce taxes on fruit and vegetables.”

In conversation with GL-PvdA party leader Frans Timmermans

2023-11-16 23:09:50
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