All 10 requests to open new Islamic secondary schools in the Netherlands last year were reportedly turned down, according to figures from education body DUO.
The
NOS broadcaster says that the requests all came from four cities, Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, and they were refused because the applicants
could not fulfil norms to show they would receive enough pupils.
There
is a legal minimum of 732 pupils to receive public funding for a school, and
inspectors apparently judged whether the potential schools would meet these
numbers by looking at the number of similar primary schools in their
neighborhoods.
But
Wim Littooij, rector and chairman of Rotterdam’s Avicenna College – one of the
Netherlands’ two Islamic secondary schools – told the NOS that the norms were
too strict and half of Avicenna College’s pupils did not come from Islamic
primary schools.
The
broadcaster reports that other types of school, such as Buddhist or free
schools, can have difficulty in starting and the government is considering new
laws this autumn for minority educational choices.
Source:
IQNA News Agency