The approach to drop-out prevention in the Netherlands
The national goal in the Netherlands is to halve the number of new school drop-outs: from over 5% annually in 2002, to 2.5% in 2012, or from 71,000 to 35,000 school drop-outs per year. We want to offer young people who leave school the prospect of work, now and in the future.
The main principles of the Aanval op Schooluitval (Drive to reduce drop-out rates) programme are:

• Additional attention to the transfer from VMBO [pre-vocational secondary education] to
  MBO (secondary vocational education);
• More and better special needs provision at school;
• More room for students who prefer to work with their hands and more tailored programmes;
• Better career orientation and guidance, study choice and counselling;
• More attractive education with sports and culture to keep young people in school;
• 20,000 programmes for school drop-outs in the age group from18 to 23 for 'competencies acquired elsewhere' and agreements with large employers aimed at obtaining basic qualifications.

Regions to take action now
The involvement of professionals from the region (schools, municipalities, youth services, the business community, etc.) is essential to a tailored attack on dropping out. Therefore, as was done for the 2006-2007 school year, the Ministry of OCW has made agreements with municipalities and schools in 39 regions for the period 2008-2011, set down into covenants. The goal: to reduce the number of school drop-outs by half by 2012. Per region, municipalities, schools and care institutions can themselves decide what measures should be implemented: the measures already mentioned or possibly new measures. It is the result that counts. Any school that manages to reduce its drop-out rate will receive € 2,500.00 for each drop-out less than the number it had in the reference year. Furthermore, additional funds are available for educational programs aimed at reducing drop-out rates. At the end of four years, an analysis will be made of which measures have had an impact.

Results of the 2007-2008 performance agreements
The results for the 2007-2008 school year have been calculated: the number of new school drop-outs was 48,300. That is a reduction of more than 10% compared with the 2005-2006 school year. The target set in the 2007-2008 performance agreements has therefore been achieved at national level. This result means that we are on track to reducing the number of school drop-outs to 35,000 by 2012. The school drop-out percentage has fallen from 5.5% in 2002 to 3.7% in the 2007-2008 school year.
We are also well on the way to achieving the EU target, i.e. to reduce the overall group of school drop-outs to 8%. In the Netherlands, that percentage fell from 15.5% in 2000 to 12% in 2007.

Provisional figures of the 2008-2009 performance agreements
According to the provisional figures of the 2008-2009 school year, the number of school drop-outs waws 42,600. That is a reduction of almost 20% compared with the 2005-2006 school year. The target has therefore been achieved at national level. The school drop-out percentage has fallen from 5.5% in 2002 to 3.2% in the 2008-2009 school year. The percentage of school drop-outs, according to the European goals, has fallen to 11.4% in 2008.

Overall conclusions:

• The national school drop-out percentage for the 2008-2009 school year is 3.2%. The larger the town/city, the higher the percentage of drop-outs. In the Netherlands’ four largest cities (the “G4”), the school drop-out percentage is 5.4%. That is 3.1% in towns of fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. In the priority neighbourhoods (krachtwijken), the school drop-out percentage ranges between 3.7% and 11.7%, making it higher than the national average.
• It is notable that the number of new school drop-outs has fallen sharply in secondary education (-38.6%) but that the decrease has been much smaller in secondary vocational education (-12.9%). 60% of secondary schools and 26% of secondary vocational schools have achieved the 20% reduction target. The number of new school drop-outs has remained static or increased since 2005-2006 at almost 30 secondary vocational schools.
• The effects of the economic recession became visible in the first quarter of 2009. Young people without a basic qualification are more likely to be unemployed than those that have obtained such a qualification. Young people without a basic qualification have consequently been hit hardest. In the third quarter of 2009, 21.3% of them were unemployed; that is an increase of 10.3% compared with the previous year.
• School drop-outs are more likely to be crime suspects. Of the pupils who dropped out of school in the 2007/08 school year, 21% were suspected of a crime, as opposed to only 4% of non-school drop-outs.