Vrijheid van onderwijs en sociale cohesie in historisch perspectief

Abstract

Freedom of education, included in the 23rd article of the Dutch Constitution, has been a basic civic right in the Netherlands for one and a half century now. This freedom allows denominations to found fully State financed schools based on their own system of beliefs. As a result State financed primary schools of the newer denominations like Islam and Hinduism have appeared in the Dutch school system during the last decades. The question has risen whether segregated schools tend to stimulate or to hamper the cohesion of society and the integration of minorities. This article explores the historical development of the Dutch concept of freedom of education in relationship to the unifying and civic educational task of the school. It appears that since the first national laws on education (1801-1806) the school was supposed to promote the peaceful cohabitation and civic morality of future citizens. Pressure from denominational groups has resulted in the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of education since 1848. State financed denominational private schools have far outnumbered the public State schools since the Education Act of 1920 that brought State subsidies to private schools on equal footing with government money spent on public schools. Debates about the primary task of schools to educate children to become good citizens have greatly influenced the perceptions of both public and private schools since the mid-nineteenth century. The present opinions expressed by authorities, political parties and educational organisations concerning denominational schools can only be understood if we consider the historical development of the related and sometimes apparently contradictory concepts of freedom of education and the pedagogical task of the school in a plural society.