Change fatigue and policy overload in Dutch education

In TALIS 2024 the Kohnstamm Institute and its partners put six statements to teachers about innovation at their own school. The sample consisted of 1,305 teachers at 140 primary schools and 1,271 teachers at 84 secondary schools, weighted for non-response; the Ministry of Education (OCW) sent the report to the House of Representatives on 7 October 2025. In primary education, 42 per cent feel too many innovation plans are launched and 41 per cent feel constantly asked to change something. In secondary education those shares are 54 and 55 per cent, and 36 per cent say they are fed up with all the innovations, against 20 per cent in primary. In both sectors over 60 per cent want a period of stability first. Dutch teachers are thus more change-weary than teachers in most comparison countries and than the international average.

Analyses in the same report show how much this matters. In primary and secondary education, administrative pressure and change fatigue are the risk factors that contribute most to work stress. In secondary education, change fatigue is also the main risk factor for lower job satisfaction. The differences lie mainly between teachers within a school; the school itself explains only a small part. Only a third of teachers think they have any influence on national policy.

At the request of the House of Representatives’ standing committee on education, ROA (the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market at Maastricht University) and CAOP (a knowledge centre for labour relations in the public sector) reviewed policy against the teacher shortage since 1993. Their report of January 2026 draws on vacancy data, a database of 72 policy measures since 1993 and 17 interviews. The researchers describe implementation as fragmented by a multitude of temporary schemes, each of which requires starting from scratch. Because rules pile up, schools often lack the time and capacity to implement new measures properly, and the high workload holds back professional development. The researchers argue for staying the course without further system reforms.

In the State of Education of 15 April 2026, the Dutch Inspectorate of Education describes a government that formally keeps its distance from primary, secondary and vocational education while steering more directly in the meantime, through statutory requirements, national programmes, central testing and more intensive inspection. The Inspectorate cites a PwC study counting 236 per cent growth over twenty years in the rules the Inspectorate also works with. Rules that have since been abolished, the Inspectorate says, are often so deeply embedded in schools that they do not simply disappear. The coalition agreement announces a simplification act to scrap rules.

How solid is the evidence? Three independent institutes point to the same phenomenon within just over six months, but TALIS 2024 was the first time change fatigue was measured in this way. There is therefore no series yet to show whether it is increasing. ROA and the Inspectorate describe the accumulation of policy; how much of it is down to schools’ own plans has not yet been examined.