History teaching in the Netherlands

History curriculum and teaching

Curriculum

Information about the history curriculum, the number of history lessons and the teaching of history in the Netherlands.

Education system
Information about the Dutch education system.


Content

  1. Education system
  2. Number of history lessons
  3. Primary Education
  4. Lower Secondary Education
  5. Upper Secondary Education (havo/vwo)
  6. Upper Secondary Education (vmbo)
  7. Home

History in Lower Secondary Education

vmbo, havo and vwo, including gymnasium


History is a mandatory subject in lower secondary education, with global attainment targets.


 The number of lessons varies: 


  • vwo:   6 lessons in three years (two lessons a year)
  • havo:  6 lessons in three years (two lessons a year)
  • vmbo: 4 lessons in two years (two lessons a year); in some cases less

Attainment targets


1. The student learns to utilize a framework of ten eras to position events, development and persons in their time. In this context the student learns about characteristic features of the following eras:


era of hunters and farmers (up to 3000 BC) / Prehistory


era of Greeks and Romans (3000 BC - 500 AD) / Antiquity


era of monks and knights (500 AD - 1000 AD) / Early Middle Ages

era of cities and states (1000 AD - 1500 AD) / High and Late Middle Ages


era of discoverers and reformers (1500 - 1600 AD) / Renaissance / 16th century
era of regents and princes (1600-1700 AD) / Golden Age / 17th century

era of wigs and revolutions (1700-1800 AD) / Age of Enlightenment / 18th century

era of citizens and steam engines (1800-1900 AD) / Age of Industrialisation / 19th century

era of world wars (1900-1950 AD) / first half of the 20th century

era of television and computer (after 1950 AD) / second half of 20th century

The student in this context learns in any case how to relate events and developments from the 20th century (such as the world wars and the holocaust) to present day events.
(attainment target 37)



2. The student learns how to utilize historical sources te create for himself an image of an era or to find answers to questions and also learns how to relate to their cultural-historical environment in this context (attaiment target 40)


The Canon of Dutch history is mandatory in lower secondary education as a startingpoint for the purpose of illustration.


Characteristic features


These characteristic features might be (not mandatory):


The following characteristics apply for era 1:


  • * the way of life of hunters and gatherers.

  • * the emergence of agriculture and agricultural communities.

  • * the emergence of the first urban communities.


The following characteristics apply for era 2:


  • * the development of a scientific way of thinking and thoughts about politics and citizenship in the Greek city state.

  • * the confrontation between Greco-Roman culture and the Germanic cultures of North-West-Europe.

  • * Christianity in the Roman Empire.

The following characteristics apply for era 3:


  • * the spread of Christianity throughout Europe.

  • * the emergence and spread of Islam.

  • * the nearly complete replacement in Western Europe of the urban culture by a self supporting agricultural culture, organized in domains with serfdom.

  • * the emergence of feudal relations in administration.


The following characteristics apply for era 4:

  • * the rise of trade and crafts, providing the base for a revival of the urban society.

  • * the emergence of an urban citizenry and a growing autonomy of cities.

  • * the conflict in the Christian world about the question whether a spiritual or a secular authority should have primacy.

  • * the beginnings of national and centralized states.


The following characteristics apply for era 5:

  • * the beginnings of European overseas expansion.

  • * the changing world view and portrayal of mankind of the Renaissance and the beginnings of a new scientific interest.

  • * the protestant reformation resulting in a split up of the Christian church in Western Europe

  • * the conflict in the Netherlands resulting in the founding of a independent Netherlands State.


The following characteristics apply for era 6:


  • * princes striving for absolute power.

  • * the special position of the Netherlands Republic in political respect and the economic and cultural flowering of the Netherlands Republic

  • * world wide trade contacts, commercial capitalism and the beginnings of a world economy.
    the scientific revolution.

  • * The scientific Revolution


The following characteristics apply for era 7:


  • * rational optimism and enlightened thinking applied to politics and society.

  • * the extension of European overseas domination, especially the founding of plantation colonies and the transatlantic slave trade involved, and the emergence of abolitionism.

  • * the discussion about fundamental rights and more political influence in the French and Dutch revolutions


The following characteristics apply for era 8:


  • * the industrial revolution in the western world, providing the base for an industrial society and the emergence of emancipation movements.

  • * the modern kind of imperialism resulting from industrialisation.

  • * ongoing democratisation, more and more men and women taking part in the political process.

  • * the emergence of socio-political movements: liberalism, nationalism, socialism, confessionalism and feminism.


The following characteristics apply for era 9:


  • * the bringing into practice of the racist and totalitarian ideologies communism and fascism / national-socialism.

  • * the crisis of world capitalism.

  • * racism and discrimination, resulting in genocide, especially directed against the Jews

  • * the German occupation of the Netherlands


The following characteristics apply for era 10:

  • * the division of the world into two ideological blocks seized by an arms race and the threat of atomic war resulting from that.

  • * nationalism and fight for independency in the colonies.

  • * the unification of Europe

  • * the development of multiform and multicultural societies.

Copyright Albert van der Kaap, 1998-2016