On Saturday May 18th, the “Financieel Dagblad” (the Dutch Financial Times) published an article about the educational climate in the Netherlands. Ruben Timmerman, founder of Springest, explained the latest trends and developments concerning vocational rehabilitation (retraining), refresher courses and development budgets.
The economical crisis has left a footprint in the private education market in the Netherlands. The market shrank from €3 billion to just €1.8 billion in the past few years. Timmerman: “An interesting trend we’ve seen is that the amount of user requests for debt management courses has been quintupled in the past year alone. This is clearly a sign of the times. ”
Furthermore, it’s striking to see that the time people spend orienting themselves for courses increased. More often, they have to pay for their own courses, instead of an employer paying forit. Our own research shows that companies often don’t meet their agreements about course budgets. Timmerman: “I see they’re searching longer and eventually choose the cheaper option. […] At first people would take about a month to orientate themselves when searching for a training course, this expanded to around three months now. A reason for this is that employers often say: not now, maybe next quarter.”
However, Ruben Timmerman is still surprised that companies in the Netherlands are cutting the budgets for the development of their employees. “I think it’s scandalous, companies are missing the chance to be more innovative and competitive.” Expert Arno Klos adds: “You learn to cope with certain conditions and know how to fill the gaps between jobs with useful activities. Therefore you won’t sink away in times of unemployment, but you’ll work out your skills in order to prevent your chances from fading.”
