Leiden will have a new international primary school from the summer of 2022. In recent years, there has been a lot of search for a school umbrella that wanted to make this possible and for a suitable location for the school. Both have now been found.
Leiden Confessional Education Foundation (SCOL) opens the new primary school, known as IGBO, in a number of empty classrooms of the Joppenszschool on the Van Vollenhovenkade in Leiden. It is expected that 3 classes, around 35 to 50 children, will go to school there from August 2022.
This school is meant for children of parents with a non-Dutch nationality who stay temporarily in the Netherlands (3 to 5 years). Furthermore, children with the Dutch nationality who have lived abroad for at least to years with their parents, or plan to go abroad within the next two years, can go to this school as well.
This puts an end to a year-long search in which many Leiden residents assumed that emergency rooms would be built on the former Crescendo site in the Mors for at least five years. Last year, however, the educational umbrella organization PROOLeiden-Leiderdorp withdrew its support for that plan at the last minute, causing a one-year delay.
That decision was a major disappointment for Education Alderman Paul Dirkse, who repeatedly emphasized the need for a new international primary school. Expats weigh heavily on access to such a school when choosing the city where they will live. SCOL has now committed to start the new international primary school from August 2022. The school has five years to bind at least 80 students to the school.
You can find more information in this article (in Dutch).
Are you interested? Contact SCOL via info@scoleiden.nl indicating IGBO.
