ROTTERDAM, 14/02/04 - Rotterdam is to become the first municipality to reverse the payment system for schools. Schools that help encourage integration will receive extra funds, instead of the other way round.

Schools with either overwhelmingly Dutch or immigrant children that do their best to become more mixed can receive premiums for accommodation, teaching programmes or recruitment of teachers, Alderman Van der Tak announced Friday. This means Rotterdam is the first to follow the recommendation of the Blok Committee, which proposed last month that schools should be rewarded for a mixed-pupils policy.

Up to now, the system obtaining in the Netherlands has been that schools receive 1.9 times more subsidy for a foreign than for a Dutch pupil. A committee headed by VVD MP Stef Blok concluded in January following a study of integration policy since 1970 that it is actually better to reward schools for efforts to encourage integration.

Research by Rotterdam's ISEO institute shows that one-fifth of the 196 primary schools are too 'black' or too 'white' compared with their neighbourhood population. According to Van der Tak, there is also a question of a 'white flight' by pupils from Rotterdam to the bordering municipalities. This phenomenon is however mainly seen regarding secondary schools.

The alderman also urges modernisation of VMBO schools, which he considers are too general. "They no longer train children for real professions, such as baker, carpenter and painting. If the ageing population starts to hit home soon, who will then repair the roof gutter?" said Van der Tak.

VMBO was formed by the merger of the lowest forms of secondary education several years ago. Some 65 percent of all secondary schoolchildren are at a VMBO school, of which 35 percent drop out early. The VMBO has been under fire since the murder of a teacher by a pupil in the Hague fanned stories of anarchy reigning at many of the schools.