Axed Education ministry staff could retrain as teachers
The VVD asks the cabinet today for a plan to let Education ministry civil servants who lose their jobs in the cuts retrain voluntarily as teachers. A majority in parliament backs the idea.
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Illustrative photo: risastla / CC BY-SA 2.0The VVD will ask the cabinet today to draw up a plan under which Education ministry civil servants cut in the government's savings drive can retrain voluntarily as teachers. Coalition parties D66 and CDA and opposition parties JA21 and 50Plus back the idea. With the VVD they make a majority in the Tweede Kamer.
The cabinet plans to cut 25,000 central government jobs over the next nine years. By 2035 about 16% of the roughly 160,000 full-time civil servants must go, State Secretary Van der Burg announced at the end of October.
VVD MP Kisteman thinks the cabinet can kill "two birds with one stone". "The cuts that have been announced are a great opportunity to let these committed people retrain voluntarily, at the government's expense, for a job in education," he said. The civil servants could get a weekly study day to retrain.
A similar attempt has been made before. In 2008 a pilot began to help fifty central government civil servants move to jobs at secondary schools. The SER concluded in a 2011 report that the project was not a success.
The Education ministry has more than €400m in its budget to tackle the teacher shortage. Van der Burg will draw up his plan for the cuts in spring 2027.
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Guide: Box 3: Dutch tax on savings and investments in 2026
VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie)
The liberal party on the centre-right, which favours free enterprise and lower taxes. It supplied the prime minister from 2010 to 2024 and is one of the three parties in the current cabinet, with D66 and the CDA.
Tweede Kamer
The House of Representatives, the lower and more powerful house of the Dutch parliament. Its 150 members are elected directly; it can amend bills and holds the cabinet to account.
SER (Sociaal-Economische Raad)
The Social and Economic Council is the Dutch advisory body in which employers' organisations, trade unions and independent members advise the government and parliament on social and economic policy. Its reports and advice are not legally binding, but they inform policy decisions on subjects such as work, labour market and education. In this context it is the body that evaluated a 2008 pilot to move civil servants into secondary school jobs.