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

Attainment targets

1. Students learn to utilize simple historical sources and learn how to use indications of time and  chronology (attainment target 51)

2. Students learn about

characteristics 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


Attainment target 52

3. Students learn about important persons and events from Dutch history and can connect these in an exemplary manner with world history (attainment target 53)

The Canon of Dutch history is mandatory in primary 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 following characteristics apply for era 2:
  • * The confrontation between Greco-Roman culture and the Germanic cultures of North-West-Europe.
  • * Christianity in the Roman Empire: from forbidden to the only allowed religion.

The following characteristics apply for era 3:
  • * The spread of Christianity throughout Europe to the Low Countries.
  • * Feudalism and serfdom..

    • The following characteristics apply for era 4:
  • * The rise of trade and crafts, and the emergence of cities
  • * The emergence of an urban citizenry and a growing autonomy of cities.

The following characteristics apply for era 5:
  • * The beginnings of European overseas expansion.
  • * The conflict in the Netherlands resulting in the founding of a independent Netherlands State
  •  
The following characteristics apply for era 6:
  • *  The rise of commercial capitalism and the beginnings of a world economy.
    * Citizens in political power and cultural flowering in the cities of the Netherlands Republic

    • The following characteristics apply for era 7:
  •  * Slave labour on plantation colonies and the emergence of abolitionism.
    * The striving for fundamental rights and political influence of citizens in the French and Dutch revolutions.
The following characteristics apply for era 8:
  •  * The emergence of a parliamentary system with more and more men and women taking part in the political process.
    * The industrial revolution and the emergence of emancipation movements.
     
The following characteristics apply for era 9:
  • * The crisis of world capitalism.
  • * The German occupation of the Netherlands and the persecution of Jews.
  •  
The following characteristics apply for era 10:
  •  * The division of the world into an Eastern and a Western bloc and the Cold War.
    * Social and cultural changes and the growing pluralism from the sixties.

Copyright Albert van der Kaap, 1998-2012