Educational Insanity

So let me vent a bit about education. No, I'm not talking about the state of the education of today's children, or of the lack of education funding in any one country, or about teachers' qualification levels.

I just want to vent about the struggle we're having getting into a damn school.

The system of starting kids off in school here in Holland seemed strange to me to begin with, but now I think it's great. Rather than children of relatively different ages starting all at the same time (at the age of 4, even a few months' difference can be massive in terms of developmental progress), all kids start on their 4th birthday, or the day after. Everyone is on exactly the same page, developmentally speaking. Then they're eventually phased up into the next levels, finally all evening out after a year or two. It's a gentle way of introducing children to formal education. Nice, right?

Well, it's nice once you're in a school, but achieving that goal is another story. I wish I was kidding when I said people here are advised to apply for schools (yes, I said 'apply') when their children are only six months old, but I'm not. And we're not talking snooty, wealthy, elite schools. I mean kindergarten, infant school, whatever term you put to the education your child begins at the age of four in your normal, average, everyone-can-go-here public school. Six months!

Short version of our story: We applied for Little Cub to have a place at the international school here (which is English-speaking) at a time when we thought that would really be our only option. No big deal, he got a place right away. Wait a minute, did I say no big deal? Perhaps I neglected to mention the teensiest, tiniest little detail of the fees for this school. It starts, the year they're four, at about $3400 / £2300, and by the time they graduate at 18-ish, the rates (this year) are approx $7000 / £4500. Every. Single. F*ing. Year.

Anyone want to guess how likely we are to be able to afford that, on top of 45% taxes and a single income? Yeah, about that likely. Until my darling husband's job has 'CEO' in the title, no chance of that happening.

So I started applying for local Dutch schools last year. We figure LC is totally fluent in the language anyway (at least in his head .... give him a month in a school and he'll be fluent speaking as well) so there's no reason not to seize this bi-lingual opportunity while we can. I've applied to five schools, and not a single one of them has a place for him.

Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Arrggghhhh!!! We're in a really crappy dilemma. Somehow find a way to cough up a tank-sized chunk of money in a few months (and every year afterwards), or ........ what? He has to go to school, right? The Dutch are so strict about that, if you try to take your kid out of school during a non-vacation time, you are either heavily fined and/or I have heard there are even police at the airports looking out for things like that. Seriously, you're kid has to be in school.

So wanna know the bold step we've taken? We declined his position at the international school. We've taken his name off the list. He has no place in any school. At all. When the time comes, I will speak to the education authorities and say 'You want my son to go to school? Fine. Then you find him a place.' I can prove we've tried to get him a place (not only applying initially, but also pestering the schools again this past week if any places have opened up), and they can't force us to go to a school that costs thousands of euro/dollars/pounds. Besides, if a school-aged child moved to this city in the middle of the school year, they would have to find a spot at a school. Why should our son be any different?

All of this, just so a four-year-old child can paint pictures of the alphabet and jump rope at recess. Insane.