PASSEND ONDERWIJS passend of onwijs? De verhouding tussen de opvattingen van basisschoolleerkrachten in het regulier onderwijs over Passend Onderwijs en hun praktijkervaringen op het gebied van kennis, klassenmanagement, vaardigheden en bijscholing.

Abstract

Background: On the first of August 2014, the law ‘Passend Onderwijs’ (Inclusive Education) was passed in the Netherlands. The purpose of this law is to find a suitable place for all children in the education system. This place has to fit their aptitudes and qualities. ‘Passend Onderwijs’ is based on the ideas of inclusive education. Teachers are critical to the success of inclusive education. Objective: Recent research shows that teachers in primary schools in the Netherlands still have an negative attitude towards ‘Passend Onderwijs’; even a year after its implementation. This study investigates how this negative attitude can be associated with the following aspects: knowledge of ‘Passend Onderwijs’, classroom-management, competences, education and retraining. Method: For this qualitative and explorative study 16 primary school teachers were interviewed. A semi-structured interview was used to elaborate on the aforementioned four aspects. Results: The main findings are that teachers do have an overall knowledge about ‘Passend Onderwijs’ and its goals. On the other hand, there is no adequate classroom-management because teachers lack the support of an assistant. Moreover, teachers do not have enough skills to teach well in a ‘Passend Onderwijs’ system. There is a need for training and developing (new) competences. Finally, schools offer sufficient opportunities for teachers to retrain. However, further development is necessary for secondary teacher trainings. Conclusions: The negative attitude of teachers towards ‘Passend Onderwijs’ could cohere with their negative experiences with classroom-management, competences and education. Their knowledge of ‘Passend Onderwijs’ and opportunities to retrain are sufficient, so these probably do not cohere.