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Ò»±¾µÀ Magazine’s Editor sat down recently with international education expert Caroline Ferguson to discuss some of the things international families can expect when relocating to the Netherlands.

MORRIS: What are some of the primary challenges families typically encounter when trying to understand and integrate into the Dutch education system?

FERGUSON: Mainly, it’s the preparedness of schools to deal with students from different places, cultures, curriculum, educational and knowledge traditions. There has been a push to internationalise Dutch schools to make them more welcoming to globally mobile families, though it hasn’t been across the board. In terms of international schools, one major challenge is the cost for expatriate families and the fact that sometimes these schools are oversubscribed, so getting places for all of a family’s children can be a real challenge. It also pays to consider the future direction of the family, what happens after the current assignment or this period of time in the Netherlands; is this going to be long term or merely a two-year stint then off to the next place?

MORRIS: Talk about one example of a specific cultural or procedural difference in the Dutch education system that often poses difficulties for international students and their families?

FERGUSON: Obviously one major issue is language, especially if families are thinking about sending children to local schools, they have to be proficient in Dutch to understand what’s going on. On the other hand, it’s easy to say that children are like sponges and they’ll integrate because that’s what they’re wired to do, but it can be incredibly difficult to acquire language, especially academic language; so, that’s a specific challenge not to be taken lightly. Children’s lives are created through language, so when we dislocate them from their social language, life is being made extremely difficult for them. The takeaway here is that if a family plans on being in the Netherlands long term, they need a strategy allowing their children to integrate into the school system. Alternatively, -following an international school curriculum will lessen the -challenges imposed upon non-Dutch speaking children.

MORRIS: How do you assess the unique needs of international students and their families, and what strategies do you employ to address these needs effectively within the educational context?

FERGUSON: What is needed is a broad approach to appreciate the cultural diversity of students and not to equate culture with nation[ality] because there is a lot of hybridity of culture in international student populations. In other words, just because you carry a passport from one country doesn’t necessarily mean a student will embody all of the cultural stereotypes from that place. These are globally mobile young people, otherwise known as , and we’ve seen how their cultural identities are created in the space in between and not always in the places but through interaction with people in different places. It’s understanding that complexity of culture which is an important strategy to approaching ways of making space for children to bring their full cultural selves into schools and into the classroom while understanding the complexities of their identities. As far as other strategies, it’s important for teachers to understand and differentiate the needs of students by tailoring the education to the specific needs of the learner.

MORRIS: In your experience, what is one key factor that contributes to the successful integration of international students into the Dutch education system?

FERGUSON: It all goes back to the professional development of staff in Dutch schools, which I have had the opportunity of facilitating, especially in places where schools are more likely to see students coming from other countries. I’ve observed that teachers who were working in schools with more migrant students—that’s to say students who were coming to stay rather than transitory ones—already have quite a lot of knowledge about this, while teachers in more middle-class places can sometimes be lacking in this area of professional development. The challenge is we know that it is essential to invest in teacher development, but we also understand that teachers have so little time and the question is how do we stack another thing on teachers’ shoulders?

MORRIS: Finally, could you share any best practices in supporting international families as they navigate the and work towards successful integration?

FERGUSON: You can tell when a school has invested in professional development of their staff. It’s when schools invest in their teachers to expand their understanding of culture and language, and not in simplistic ways like how people in certain countries communicate in this way or the other, but viewing culture as a dynamic and constantly constructing awareness of that. So, when schools invest in the professional development of teachers, they expand their understanding of culture and the ways people use language and the ways you can use multiple languages in the classroom. This concept, called translanguaging, is where teachers use technology in really innovative ways to encourage children to use their home languages in the classroom to build on what they already know, making their language and culture rich resources rather than a disadvantage. 

You can find more information about Dutch education system here.ÌýÌý