By Aleksandra Trivan Johnstone
If you were to search online for “best education systems in the world,” you will almost always see the Netherlands ranked in the top ten. But what makes an education system “the best?”
Other than its enviably low secondary class sizes (15–18 students, on average) and strict attendance laws (parents are fined €100 for every day their child misses school without official permission), this was a question I was eager to explore when my family recently had the chance to make an 18-month move from Ontario, Canada, to the Netherlands. While there has been much information to sift through, it has been exciting to see how many similarities there are between schools in Canada and those in the Netherlands, as well as how the two systems differ.
Aleksandra Trivan Johnstone is a secondary school teacher in the Halton District School Board.
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