Education in the Netherlands: school stages, the VWO and HAVO exams and university entry
A guide to schooling in the Netherlands, the VMBO, HAVO and VWO tracks, the national eindexamen, how marks work and how to apply to higher education.
In short
Education in the Netherlands is organised by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and schools have a good deal of freedom in how they teach. Children must attend school from the age of five, although almost all start at four, and the duty to attend continues until they are sixteen, with a further requirement to keep studying part time until eighteen if they have no basic qualification. After primary school, pupils are placed in one of several secondary tracks. The national school-leaving exams, the eindexamen, are taken in the final year of each track, and the VWO and HAVO diplomas lead to university and to universities of applied sciences. Applications for higher education go through one national portal, Studielink.
School stages
- Primary school (basisonderwijs): Eight years, called groep 1 to groep 8, for children from about four to twelve. Pupils learn Dutch, arithmetic, world orientation, arts and physical education. In the last year they take an end-of-primary test, and together with the teacher's opinion it leads to a recommendation for a secondary track.
- Secondary school (voortgezet onderwijs): Three main tracks with different lengths. VMBO is the preparatory vocational track and lasts four years. HAVO is the senior general secondary track and lasts five years. VWO is the pre-university track and lasts six years, and it exists as the atheneum and as the gymnasium, which adds classical languages. The first years are often taught in a broad bridge class, and pupils can move between tracks in some cases.
- Vocational education (MBO): Courses at several levels that combine school with practical training in a company, usually after VMBO.
- Higher education: Universities of applied sciences (HBO) offer professionally oriented degrees, and research universities (WO) offer academic degrees.
The national exam and grading
The final exam, the eindexamen, has two parts. The school exam (schoolexamen) is set and marked by the school during the last years of the track, and it covers tests, assignments and oral work. The central exam (centraal examen) is a national set of papers, written by the national exam body, the College voor Toetsen en Examens, and taken by all pupils of the track in the same period in spring. A second sitting is held in early summer, and pupils may resit some papers.
Pupils at HAVO and VWO take a set of compulsory subjects, which include Dutch and English, and a profile with a group of subjects in one of several areas such as science and technology, health, economics and society, or culture and society. In each subject the school mark and the central exam mark are combined into a final mark. Marks run from 1 to 10, where a 6 is generally the lowest mark that counts as sufficient. Whether a pupil passes depends on a set of rules about the final marks across subjects, so one lower mark can sometimes be made up by higher marks elsewhere. The rules differ somewhat by track, so check the current regulations of the exam body.
University and college entry
A VWO diploma gives access to research universities, while a HAVO diploma normally gives access to a university of applied sciences. Applicants register through Studielink, which also handles applications for study finance and enrolment. The subjects taken at school matter, because many university programmes ask for a particular profile or for specific subjects such as mathematics. Some programmes have a limited number of places, and for those the institution selects applicants, sometimes using its own procedure that can include a motivation letter, an interview or a test. Pupils with a HAVO diploma can also move on to a university after completing a first year at a university of applied sciences, and MBO graduates can continue to HBO.
Student finance and international students
Students in higher education pay tuition fees set under national rules, and the national agency DUO manages student finance, including loans and the public transport arrangement for students. Students from outside the country who want to study in the Netherlands should check whether their school diploma is accepted for the programme. Many universities offer programmes taught in English, and they will often ask for proof of English, for which an IELTS or TOEFL result is common. Always check the requirements on the programme page of the institution, because they can change.
Driver licensing and CBR theory exam
To obtain a passenger car driving licence (Category B) in the Netherlands, candidates must pass both a theory examination and a practical driving test administered nationwide by the Centraal Bureau Rijvaardigheidsbewijzen (CBR). The CBR theory test evaluates candidate knowledge across traffic rules under the RVV 1990, road signs, hazard perception, safe following distances, weather conditions, priority rules and vehicle maintenance.
Practising on GetMyMockTest
These are practice questions we wrote for study. They are not the official exams, and we do not claim they match an exam's current format. Free practice for the Netherlands:
- CBR driving theory: traffic rules, road signs, hazard perception and vehicle safety for the category B licence.
- VWO / HAVO Centraal Examen: mathematics, Dutch language and literature, and economics, with timed tests and flashcards.
- Dutch general knowledge: history and politics, geography and nature, and science, arts and culture.
- IELTS, TOEFL, IB Diploma and SAT: international exams that many Dutch and international applicants also take.