Basic Education
Social developments are forcing the government to raise the level of education of pupils. In its report Basic Education (Report no. 27, 1986), the WRR therefore calls for a general basic curriculum in the first stage of secondary education designed to prevent pupils from making a premature or socially-determined choice of a further study or profession.
Core curriculum
Students would follow the same core curriculum with a package of fourteen basic subjects during the first phase of secondary education. This core curriculum would account or 80% of the total number of teaching hours. In the remaining ‘free space’ pupils could study these subjects in more depth or take subjects outside the mandatory curriculum.
New perspectives for vocational education
The basic education curriculum would create an opportunity for the necessary rethinking of lower vocational education, for example by creating a separate learning path in which, after two years of general basic education, pupils would combine professional preparation with the basic curriculum. Pupils who choose this learning path would complete their basic education with an exam at the general attainment level at least.
The WRR published this report at the request of the government.