State Secretary Karremans: Re -introducing school swimming not feasible

Despite the wishes of the House of Representatives, school swimming does not return to education for the time being. State Secretary Vincent Karremans (VVD) of Youth, Prevention and Sport writes this on Friday in a letter to the Lower House. According to Karremans, school swimming is too expensive in the eyes of the cabinet. In addition, it costs more than a hundred extra educational hours and there is a ‘very limited’ support among school leaders.

The reintroduction of mandatory school swimming would cost 145 million euros per year. According to Karremans, the cabinet has selected that money. « Schools must be able to focus on the basic skills reading, writing and calculating, as is laid down in the government program, » said the State Secretary.

Karremans’ letter is a response to five motions from the SP and GroenLinks-PvdA in which attention was requested to swim and swimming education. In February last year a majority of the chamber voted before the return From school swimming in Dutch education, but the cabinet chooses not to carry out that motion.

Number of children without a diploma increases

In many places school swimming has been abolished, often because municipalities no longer subsidized it. The number of children without a swimming diploma has increased in recent years. In 2018 more than 94 percent of the children still had a swimming diploma, in 2022 it had fallen to 87 percent.

It is mainly children from poorer families or with a migration background who do not go to swimming lessons. At the moment, obtaining an A diploma, for basic swimming skills, costs between 500 and 1,100 euros per child. Those costs are not only in the tuition fee, but also in registration, swimming and transporting to the swimming pool.

Although Karremans does not opt ​​for a reintroduction of school swimming, he does want to tackle the fall in diploma possession. The government wants to guarantee the affordability of swimming lessons, recruit more swimming instructors, increase the consciousness of the importance of swimming skills and reduce the physical distance to the swimming pool.

Karremans also appeals to municipalities. He wants to ask them to help parents find financial arrangements that make swimming lessons cheaper. The VVD State Secretary also wants to get children without a better picture of children without a diploma. He wants to look for alternative ways in which they too can obtain at least one swimming diploma.

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