De vrijheid van het bijzonder onderwijs - pagina 238

Summary

Until 1830 government educational policy in the Netherlands was aimed at

creating a monopoly of the mixed public school, mixed in the sense that

public schools sought to accommodate pupils of all rehgious persuasions.

Gradually opposition to this policy grew. The opponents favoured freedom

of education, a freedom that would then involve the right to found schools

of any specific persuasion, the right to choose fitting educational methods

and the right to appoint teachers for these private schools. At a later stage

the concept of such freedom came to include the right to arrange educa-

tional programmes according to the schools' persuasion and to arrange the

management of private schools. Thus freedom of education eventually

covered all aspects of education.

Since the revision of the Constitution in 1848 freedom of education has

been recognized as a fundamental right. The Constitution also stipulated that

pubhc education would from then on have to respect all religious behefs.

This has ultimately led to the acceptance of the principle of religious neutral-

ity in pubhc education, meaning that public education has to avoid any con-

nection with rehgious belief.

Compared to lower education higher education in the Netherlands enjoyed

surprising freedom during the first half of the nineteenth century. Based on

the 1848 Constitution the first law on higher education was passed in 1876.

Although this law acknowledged the right to found private universities it

withheld from them the power to award the degrees that admitted to public

office. Degrees awarded by private universities were an academic

qualification only and held no effectus civilis. Under the law of 1876 the

first Dutch private university, the Free University of Amsterdam, was

founded in 1880. The main reason for its foundation was the Government's

attitude towards public higher theological education that henceforth was to

avoid any connection with specific religious behef. Theological education at

the Free University was to be based on the principles of the Calvinistic faith.

In 1905 the legislature granted private universities the right to,award

degrees with effectus civilis subject to certain conditions. The law of 1905

was mainly the work of Abraham Kuyper, one of the founders of the Free

University and a government minister from 1901 till 1905. This law greatly

improved the standing of private higher education. In 1914 the Rotterdam

High School of Economics was founded; in 1923 the Catholic University at

Nijmegen and in 1927 the Catholic High School of Economics at Tilburg. At

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