Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Netherlands)

Netherlands

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
the Netherlands



Other countries · Atlas
Politics portal

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschappen; OCW) is the Dutch Ministry of Education: the position is occupied with the Dutch education policy, science policy, culture policy and the Netherlands Public Broadcasting.

The current minister is Marja van Bijsterveldt, she is aided by a state secretary, Halbe Zijlstra.

Contents

Responsibilities

The mission of the ministry is to "work for a smart, able and creative Netherlands"[1] The ministry is responsible for three fields of policy:

Organisation

The ministry is currently headed by one minister and two state secretary. The ministry's main office is located in the Hoftoren, the tallest building of The Hague. The ministry has around 2500 civil servants. The civil service is headed by a secretary general and a deputy secretary general, who head a system of three directorates general:

It has several autonomous agencies:

History

The predecessor of the ministry, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences was founded in 1918, as it became autonomous from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. It was founded as a result of the resolution of the conflict about the equalization of the finance for religious and public schools. During the German occupation the ministry was renamed Department for Education, Sciences and Cultural Conservation[2] and a separate Department for Propaganda and Arts. In 1965 the department for arts was integrated into the new Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work. In 1982 this cultural department was integrated into the Ministry of Health. In 1996 cultural department returned to the Ministry of Education.

Ministers

Since 1989 the following politicians have been Minister of Education, Culture and Science

See also

References

  1. ^ Minocw.nl
  2. ^ "Departement Opvoeding, Wetenschappen en Kultuurbescherming" (Dutch)

External links