Every day, 1.5 million pupils attend primary school and almost 1 million pupils attend secondary school. A considerable amount of public money is spent on the construction, renovation and maintenance of school buildings. Each year, municipalities and school boards jointly spend more than €2.5 billion on the maintenance, renovation and construction of the approximately 9,000 school buildings in primary and secondary education.
A large number of school buildings in the Netherlands are ageing and need to be renovated or replaced. This is important for a good learning environment; for the health and well-being of pupils and education staff; and also for the new standards that will apply from 2050 for energy-efficient buildings.
What are we investigating?
We want to assess whether municipalities receive sufficient funding to renovate or replace ageing school buildings. We are also seeking to calculate the extent to which the buildings’ ageing condition affects the learning outcomes of primary school pupils.
Why are we investigating this?
Replacing and renovating ageing school buildings throughout the Netherlands costs a great deal of money. We want the Minister of Education, Culture and Science and parliament to know whether this funding is currently available and, if so, whether it actually reaches the school buildings. We also want to give the minister and parliament an indication of what investments in school buildings could deliver for pupils in the Netherlands, so that they can better weigh the interests involved when deciding how to spend public money.
Current status
Investigation into investment in ageing school buildings
Information the Court of Audit collects in the performance of its statutory tasks is confidential and not made public. Information shared between the Court of Audit and the auditee concerning the information it collects is not made public either and cannot be released under a freedom of information request.
We submit our reports to the House of Representatives. They are then published on our website.
Do you want to take part in this audit?
The Court of Audit invites you to share any information you may have that would benefit our audit. We appreciate all contributions, knowledge and experience you may care to share with us on this topic. Simply send an email to bijdrage@rekenkamer.nl.
We read all emails carefully and treat them in confidence. However, we are not able to reply to every contribution we receive.