Actually IRL we are currently experiencing the opposite problem: too many parents (and kids also) browbeating teachers into bumping kids up to VWO who really should not be there and will fail.
Keep in mind that at our highest level of VWO, gymnasium, you have to have many years of both Latin and Greek + two other languages and pre-cal starts at age 13. The other levels are not as over the top language intense, but are the equivalent to an English public school/N American private school.
There are not that many kids prepared for this, and parents pushing them into that education path is a recipe for a very, very unhappy and likely unsuccessful childhood. Plenty hate school so much after this they never bother getting a university degree anyway.
I think the problem is entirely structural. The categories are wrong, they are construed as “levels”, ie, ranks, therefore they are interpreted directly as a social ordering, which causes parents to push for their kids not be classes in “lower” levels. Why not just have education open for everyone and have in the same curriculum options for both Latin and Blacksmithing?
“Hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticize after dinner” and “every cook must learn how to govern the state”.
Actually IRL we are currently experiencing the opposite problem: too many parents (and kids also) browbeating teachers into bumping kids up to VWO who really should not be there and will fail.
Keep in mind that at our highest level of VWO, gymnasium, you have to have many years of both Latin and Greek + two other languages and pre-cal starts at age 13. The other levels are not as over the top language intense, but are the equivalent to an English public school/N American private school.
There are not that many kids prepared for this, and parents pushing them into that education path is a recipe for a very, very unhappy and likely unsuccessful childhood. Plenty hate school so much after this they never bother getting a university degree anyway.
I think the problem is entirely structural. The categories are wrong, they are construed as “levels”, ie, ranks, therefore they are interpreted directly as a social ordering, which causes parents to push for their kids not be classes in “lower” levels. Why not just have education open for everyone and have in the same curriculum options for both Latin and Blacksmithing?
“Hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticize after dinner” and “every cook must learn how to govern the state”.