Taalontwikkeling Van Buitenlandse Kinderen in Het Onderwijs

Abstract

Migration of foreign workers and their families is a familiar phenomenon throughout Europe. From this it follows that the inte-gration of migrant children into the educational system is not a specifically Dutch problem. Comparison with the integration of migrant children elsewhere in Europe - notably in Sweden - shows the policy of the Dutch government to be rather restrictive. Attention is given to the nature of the initiatives which have been taken so far in the Netherlands in this field, to the quantitative dimensions of the problem, to the bicultural educational aims pursued, to a number of problems which arise with respect to their realisation, and to the language programmes which have been developed so far for the benefit of migrant children. Furthermore, two domains are discussed which deserve much more attention, particularly from the point of view of educa-tional research: the development and evaluation of new language programmes for migrant children and the development and evalua-tion of training programmes for teachers who will be involved in the teaching of these children. As regards the latter cate-gory, special attention is given to the activities of the Ver-duin Committee, which since April 1976 has been working on the implementation of an in-service training programme for infant and primary school teachers who will be engaged in this special type of education.