Schiedam gets a third Islamic primary school: “The municipality advised against it”

Schiedam will have a new Islamic primary school. Thanks to the new law “more space for new schools”, several schools can carry out their projects. Within this group, the education plans of nine primary schools with an Islamic identity have been approved by the Education Inspectorate.

The request for additional primary schools was granted in Vlaardingen, Maassluis and Schiedam, among others. In Schiedam, the Ababil primary school will have an additional building. The school’s human resources manager, Zeynep Erdogan, is delighted with the news. “Especially in Vlaardingen, we fought for a primary school for a long time.” According to Erdogan, their request has been rejected several times because they do not have enough students. “Now that the ‘more room for new schools’ law has been voted, we have received authorization from the minister. So after being rejected seven times and after many fights, it finally worked.

Application previously rejected

An application has already been submitted to Schiedam for an extension of the Ababil primary school. At the time, this request was not honored by the municipality. Erdogan: “It was rejected because there would still be room for placement and because, according to the municipality, a number of things were still not in order. This now also applies to this school , the ministry has made room for the foundation.

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Simultaneously with the Islamic College Foundation’s request for additional premises at the Ministry of Education, the Municipality of Schiedam issued its opinion. According to Erdogan, the municipality of Schiedam “advised against” founding another school in Schiedam. “Instead, the current school could still grow. We don’t want that, it will be to the detriment of quality and the children here.”

“Housing program without application”

The Municipality of Schiedam states in a written response: “We heard with interest in the press about the minister’s decision to approve the initiative of the Islamic College Foundation to establish a third primary school in Schiedam. We assume that we will receive another official message from the ministry here.

The school board did not apply for the 2023 housing program for the establishment of the third Islamic primary school. We learned from the media that the Islamic College Foundation is now prioritizing a school in Vlaardingen and Maassluis. Furthermore, the foundation of a school in Delft is also in the process of being started.

We currently do not know what exactly the school board wants with regard to any expansion with a third elementary school. We will discuss this with CIS.

According to the school board itself, the application for the housing program will be submitted in February 2023. According to them, discussions on housing have also started from today.

East Schiedam

Despite this view, the ministry decided to make public funds available for the construction of a third Islamic primary school in Schiedam. Erdogan hopes there will be room in East Schiedam for the new school building. “We are already in Groenoord and Nieuwland, now we would like to go to the East because we also have children from this region. Sometimes you also see that some children come from Rotterdam West. We prefer Schiedam-Oost to avoid these flows.

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