Citizenship Education Exam Mandatory for MBO Students in 2026

Note: the citizenship exam will be a mandatory part of MBO starting in the 2027-2028 academic year.   

Dijkgraaf: “I see it as an important task to work together with MBO institutions to strengthen education in basic skills for all MBO students. We are working hard on this. Besides being able to read, write and calculate well, it also concerns citizenship. With a mandatory exam in the form of, for example, a portfolio, citizenship education gets a more important place and it gives students clarity about the requirements they must meet.”

Citizenship education is about learning to make choices for your own future and acquiring skills to participate in an increasingly rapidly changing society. For example, knowing how the democratic rule of law works, being able to make independent choices about your finances, or learning how to recognize disinformation. Earlier, Dijkgraaf indicated not to choose a citizenship exam, partly due to the risk of unnecessary performance pressure among students. Also, the knowledge test as a form of citizenship education exam was unsuitable because it is not only about knowledge but also about skills and experiences. Now it appears that an exam can also be completed with a portfolio, the minister decides to introduce an institutional exam after all. Students and teachers are also more positive about this. In addition, teaching citizenship becomes less optional because the subject gets a more important place in education, as also advised by the Expert Group Citizenship Education. 

Per program, it may vary what a portfolio must consist of and meet. For example, it can be filled with practical assignments, presentations, reports of visits, interviews, and a final interview with the student. The exam is graded with a pass or fail or good. Programs may decide for themselves how they organize citizenship education and which emphases they place on substantive themes, as long as demonstrable attention is paid to the new qualification requirements and democratic values such as freedom, equality, and solidarity. Some MBOs already work with a citizenship portfolio with positive experiences from both students and teachers, such as at Albeda, Summa College, Zadkine, Firda, and ROC van Twente.

The citizenship exam is part of the approach to improve basic skills in MBO. In recent years, there has been a declining trend in the ability to read, write and calculate well, both in secondary education and in MBO. Differences between pupils and students are also increasing. New research also shows that knowledge about citizenship among 15-year-olds is decreasing and that there are large differences in citizenship competencies between young people from families with lower and higher educated parents. A worrying development that the ministry is trying to reverse together with schools and institutions. One of the other measures to improve basic skills in MBO is that MBO teachers must follow an additional training program to teach basic skills in arithmetic, language, and citizenship. The aim is to include these requirements in legislation from the 2026-2027 academic year. The coming year, it will be further developed in consultation with the field how the training program will look. The new requirements will apply to current and new teachers, ensuring that teachers have enough time to retrain.